^ 



v v 



THE SABBATH 



AND 



THE SUNDAY. 



Part 


t, 


• 


« 


Argument 


Part 


ii, 




BY 


Wistory, 




Key. 


A. 


H. LEWIS, A. M. 



AMERICAN SABBATH TRACT SOCIETY, 
ALFRED CENTRE, N. Y. 

A. H. Lewis, (ten'l Agent. 

1870. 






vfr* 



ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, 

IN THE YEAR 1870, BY A. H. LEWIS, IN THE OFFICE OF 

THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON. 



PREFACE. 



:o:- 




O-Sabbathism has borne a terrible 
harvest of immorality and infidelity 
in Europe. The puritan theory of 
a " change of day" has been tried 
in America and found wanting. It is dying, 
as all compromises must die, and the Puritan 
Sunday is already a thing of the past. Hurried 
on by the influences which pour in upon them 
from Europe, the American people are rushing 
into open No-Sabbathism and Sunday revelry. 
Sabbath Eeform is, therefore, a vital question 
in the American Church, and promises to soon 
become prominent in American politics. 
Meanwhile the religious leaders persist in 
holding to dead theories and false interpreta- 



4 PREFACE. 

tions, and plead for the power of civil law to 
galvanize them into life. Good men, floating 
amid the wreck, are calling for help ; praying 
for light. Under such circumstances, the ap- 
pearing of a book like this needs no explana- 
tion or apology. It would be criminal to 
remain silent. 

The tide sets strongly against the plain 
statement of the Bible, that the Seventh day 
is the Sabbath of God, and a deadened pub- 
lic conscience is slow to accept an unpopular 
truth. Hence the triumph of the Sabbath 
may be delayed, but it will finally come, for 
God's promise is under it. The pencils of 
light are already gliding upward in the east- 
ern sky, and we trust that the morning is not 
distant. But if we must wait long hours yet 
in the slow-coming twilight, there is no doubt, 
no fear as to the final result. Sunday-keeping, 
though a gray haired error, is giving way and 
God's children will accept and reverence that 
which, more than all else, represents Him in 
in human life, His Sabbath. We send these 
pages forth, a plea for that Sabbath as the 



PREFACE. 5 

only ground of true Sabbath Eeform. We 
plead not in the spirit of narrow formalism, 
nor for the letter of the law alone; but for 
that broad, spiritual obedience which is the 
proof of love, and which recognizes the truth 
that the letter of a perfect law is but the 
expression of the spirit of that law. We ask 
no immunity from just criticism. We wait 
for coming years to vindicate our cause ; years 
in which men will have learned the folly of 
fighting against God. 

Sabbath reform now stands before the 
American people in a position similar to that 
which the Anti-Slavery Eeform occupied 
thirty years ago. The truth is unpopular and 
the Church supports those false theories which 
hinder reform. The potentates laughed at 
the burning words of Garrison when he flung 
the Anti-Slavery banner to the breeze and 
said : u lam in earnest Ivrill not equivocate. I 
will not excuse. I will not retract a single inch, 
AND I will be heard." But those words 
were winged with truth, and burned their way 
like coals from the altar of justice, and po- 



6 PREFACE. 

tentates have long since knelt in the dust 
before them. Under God, we make those 
words our own and " nail our banner to the 
mast," over against the false theories of 
Church and State concerning the Sabbath. 

Many leaders in the Church know the truth, 
but are unwilling to obey it — u He that Jcnoiveth 
his master's will and doeth it not shall be beaten 
with many stripes. 1 '' If the people catch sight 
of the truth, these leaders quiet them by stig- 
matizing the " Jewish Saturday" and boasting 
of the majority who favor Sunday. Such 
things cannot always be, justice has not lost 
her sword, and God has not forgotten the 
world. Our hope is in Him. In His name 
these pages go forth, while we u labor and 
wait" for the hour in which He will vindicate 
the long-neglected Sabbath. 

The original plan of this work included a 
detailed history of Sunday and " Sunday 
legislation," in Europe and America. But 
it was found that such a work would be too 
bulky for the purposes of this volume, and 
that matter is reserved for another work. It 



PREFACE. 7 

is also pertinent to say that the author alone, 
and not the Society under whose auspices this 
work is published, is responsible for the views 
set forth in the following pages. 

Alfred Centre, N. Y. A. H. L. 

Sept 1870, 




CHAPTEB I 
Apf^iori Argument. 

HE patterns of all things must exist 
as pure thoughts in the mind of 
Jehovah before there can be any 
outward creation. These pattern 
thoughts are the laws by which the work of 
creation is developed, and governed. There- 
fore "law," in its pure, primary meaning, is 
but another name for God's ideal. Hence no 
primary law can be abrogated or changed ; for 
God's ideas are perfect and absolute. Any 
change or abrogation of primary laws must 
destroy the creation or government which has 
been developed according to those laws, and 
is governed by them. Abrogate the law of 
" gravitation," and all physical worlds are at 
once destroyed. The same is true in moral 
government. Even the disobedience of a 



10 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

member of the government produces discord, 
and to a certain extent, breaks up the order of 
the government. If the law-making power 
shall change or abrogate the laws on which 
the government rests, the government is 
changed or destroyed. It is also a self-evident 
truth that all primary laws must antedate 
the government which is based upon them, 
and all perfect laws must meet the necessities 
which grow out of the relations between the 
governor and the governed. Obedience on 
the part of the governed is at once the sign of 
fealty, and the means of blessing. 

It is befitting to inquire in the light of the 
foregoing principles, whether the Sabbath 
Law is a primary law in moral government, 
or only a temporary enactment made with 
reference to a primary law. 

The commemorative rest of Jehovah at the 
close of His creative work is the first ex- 
pression of the Sabbath idea. This rest follows 
close upon the completion of the work, as 
though it were a part of the original pattern. 
And when it is remembered that the Sabbath 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 11 

Law meets the demands which grow out of 
our relations to God, which relations existed 
from the birth of the race, the conclusion is 
inevitable that the Sabbath Law was a primary 
structural law in the moral universe, and like 
all other primary laws, had its origin in the 
mind of Jehovah "before the world was." 

The idea of God as Creator is the all-embrac- 
ing idea. His character as Law-giver, and 
Eedeemer, flows from the idea of Creator. 
Fealty to God, and our own highest good de- 
mand that we constantly remember Him and 
our relations to Him. Hence the Sabbath Law 
links itself with this all-embracing idea of the 
true God, the maker of heaven and of earth, 
and holds it ever before us. A law which 
thus forms the central thread of communion 
between the Creator and the creature, which 
thus meets the universal demands of our 
nature in its relations to Him, which is God's 
never-ceasing representative in "time," must 
be as universal and enduring as the system of 
which it is a part. 

Man is a social as well as a religious being. 



12 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

In this dual nature the highest motive that 
can enter into our relations to each other is, 
" Love to man." This unites the race, and 
linking with, "Love to God," leads us up to 
Him. The universal expression of love to 
God is worship. Social worship is, therefore, 
the natural result of the highest action of 
man's dual nature. But social worship could 
never become universal or permanent without 
a stated and definite time, fixed by the author 
of man's nature and the object of His worship. 
Illustration : If a governor orders an election 
of officers, and appoints no time when the 
election shall be held, there is not only a want 
of wisdom in the arrangement, but the election 
must be a failure. To say that God did not 
pre-ordain the Sabbath Law, as' a structural 
law in moral government, is to charge the 
Perfect One with similar folly. This would 
be a contradiction of terms, an absurdity. 

Thus it is seen that God's relations to His 
own work, our relations to Him, and our rela- 
tions to each other, all combine to show that 
the Sabbath Law must have been a primary, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 13 

structural law of the moral government under 
which we exist. Being such it can only be 
abrogated by the annulling of all these rela- 
tions, and the destruction of the government. 

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT. 

The question which arises on the threshold 
of the Scriptural argument concerning the 
Sabbath, is this : 

Can the Law of the Sabbath and the Day of 
the Sabbath be separated? — Two points care- 
fully examined, will answer this question. 

(a) Why was the seventh day chosen as the 
Sabbath? 

(b) By virtue of what did it become the 
Sabbath ? 

(a) God could not commemorate the work of 
creation until it was completed. It was not 
completed until the close of the sixth day. 
Hence no day previous to the seventh could 
have been chosen as the Sabbath. Previous 
to the Seventh day creation was only a 
"becoming." With the opening of the 
Seventh day it sprang into full being. This 



14 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

therefore, was creation's birth-day, and hence 
the only day that could be chosen to commem- 
orate the rest of God from the completed work 
of creation. As one cannot celebrate his 
birthday on a day earlier or later than that on 
which his birth occurred, so Jehovah sancti- 
fied the seventh as the only day which could 
answer the original idea of the Sabbath Law. 
Therefore the Sabbath Law and the Sabbath 
Day designated by its author are inseparable. 
Applied to any other day the law has no 
meaning. 

(b) The acts of Jehovah by which the 
Seventh day was consecrated as the Sabbath. 
God rested on that day, hence the sacredness 
arising from His example can pertain to no 
other day. God blessed the day and hallowed 
it, because He had rested upon it. Thus the 
elements of sacredness, and of commemorative- 
ness are inseparably connected with the day. 
If the law be applied to another day, it 
becomes meaningless ; for the law demands a 
day thus made sacred, and no other day than 
the seventh could be made sacred for those 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 15 

reasons. Nor can the seventh day cease to be 
thus sacred, until it shall cease to be a fact 
that God rested upon that day and blessed it. 
This can never be. 

Again, no other day than the seventh can 
meet the demands of our own natures, since 
no other day can keep God in mind through 
its commemorative sacredness. Any other 
day, observed for any reason not mentioned 
in the law, has another language — speaks of 
other things, and hence cannot speak to the 
soul as God designed the Sabbath should 
speak. Thus it appears that God chose the 
Seventh day for good and sufficient reasons, 
reasons which spring from the " eternal fitness 
of things," and which co-exist with our race. 
Therefore, if there be any Sabbath, it must be 
the seventh day. The law centers around 
the day, and is meaningless when applied to 
any other. Much is said by certain writers 
concerning the "Sabbath institution,' 1 as 
though it were distinct from the Sabbath Law 
and the Sabbath day. A glance will suffice 
to show the illogicalness of such a claim. 



16 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

An institution is only the outgrowth of or- 
ganific law. Eefuse or neglect to obey the 
law and yon destroy the institution. Illustra- 
tion : During the late "rebellion" the 
institutions of the United States government 
ceased to exist, wherever the laws of that 
government were disobeyed. So he who re- 
fuses to obey the Sabbath Law destroys, so 
far as his power extends, the Sabbath 
institution. 

The second question which naturally 
arises is this, Was the Sabbath Law knoivn to 
men before the giving of the Decalogue at Mount 
Sinai? — All the arguments presented in a, 
former section to prove that the Sabbath Law 
is a primary law will apply with equal force 
to the above question. To these reasons the 
following may be added. All the primary 
relations between God and His creatures exist- 
ed before the giving of the decalogue. All the 
wants of man's nature existed during that 
time; hence all laws made to meet these 
relations and answer these wants must have 
been co-existent with the relations and 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 17 

demands. There was an especial demand for 
a knowledge of the Sabbath daring this period, 
as a safeguard against the prevailing tendency 
to forget God, and accept heathenism. Be- 
sides this, God having made the Sabbath 
sacred at creation, it could have been no less 
than sin to profane it at any time thereafter, 
and God does not leave his creatures without 
the knowledge requisite to obedience. Hence 
we must conclude that the Sabbath was 
known before the giving of the Law at Sinai. 
This conclusion is in harmony with the mas- 
terly argument of Paul in the epistle to the 
Bomans,* in which he shows that since sin 
existed "from Adam to Moses," therefore the 
Law must have existed, for " Sin is not impu- 
ted where there is no law." Christ proclaims 
the same idea when he teaches the eternal 
nature of the law, and the truth that "the 
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the Sabbath."f In this Christ clearly indicates 
that the Sabbath Law antedated the race and 

* Romans, 5: 12-15 and 4: 15. 
f Mark, 2: 27. 



18 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

was given for the especial benefit of the race. 
Hence also his right, as " Lord of the Sabbath/ 1 
to indicate how it ought to be observed, since 
all things were made by Him. 

The brief Scriptural record concerning the 
period between the creation and the giving 
of the Law confirms the foregoing conclu- 
sions. In the second chapter of Genesis, 
first to fourth verses, we have the history of 
the instituting of the Sabbath in the follow- 
ing words : 

" Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and 
all the host of them." 

" And on the seventh day God ended His work which 
He had made ; and He rested on the Seventh day from 
all His work which He had made." 

"And God blessed the Seventh day and sanctified it ; 
because that in it He had rested from all His work which 
God created and made." 

This fact so full of deep meaning, and 
inseparable from the history of creation could 
not have been unknown to Adam and the 
patriarchs who " walked with God," and 
were taught by Him. Knowing of the exis- 
tence of the Sabbath, they must have known 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 19 

of its sacredness, and their duty to observe it. 
The septenary division of time into weeks 
was well understood during the patriarchal 
age.* This knowledge necessitates a know- 
ledge of the Sabbath by which the weeks are 
separated. But positive testimony is not 
wanting. The sixteenth chapter of Exodus 
shows that the Sabbath was known and 
observed before the giving of the Decalogue 
at Sinai, and that the first special test of obe- 
dience which Grod made after the Israelites 
left Egypt, was concerning its observance. 
The giving of the manna occurred on the 
fifteenth day of the second month, and the 
Hebrews did not reach Sinai until some time 
daring the third month after their departure 
from Egypt. In the fourth verse of this 16th 
of Exodus, it is said that God told Moses : 

" Behold I will rain bread from heaven for yon ; and 
the people shall go ont and gather a certain rate every 
day, that I may prove them whether they will walk in 
My law or no." 

This shows that the test of obedience was 
to be made in connection with the gathering of 
the manna according to a certain daily rate. 

* See Genesis 7: 4-8-10-12. 



20 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

The next verse gives the test, viz : 

" And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they 
shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be 
twice as much as they gather daily." 

It is plain that the test lay in the volun- 
tary preparations for the Sabbath, on the part 
of the people; for in the sixteenth verse 
Moses reveals nothing to the people except 
the order to gather the stated portion each 
day ; and when some would not heed this 
order,* the manna not only became worthless, 
but Moses testified his displeasure at their dis- 
obedience. The people were not ordered to 
gather a double portion on the sixth day, nor 
were they informed that the manna should 
not fall upon the Sabbath. They were left 
wholly ignorant on this point in order that 
the test of their obedience might be complete. 
Hence it is said in the twenty-second verse that 
when the sixth day came, and the people vol- 
untarily gathered an extra portion for the 
Sabbath, the rulers came at once and told 
Moses of their apparent disobedience. Then, 
for the first time, Moses reveals to them what 

* 20th Verse. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 21 

God had said concerning the test to be made 
and tells them* that there should be no 
manna on the Sabbath. Nevertheless some 
went out to seek for it on the Sabbath, and 
God rebukes them in a way, and with a 
severity which is wholly inconsistent with 
the idea that this was their first offence. He 
says :f 

" How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and 
My laws" &c. There is no appearance of any 
thing new, or the introduction of anything 
before unknown. The conditions of the test, 
and the voluntary act of the people in prepar- 
ing for the Sabbath, show that the law of the 
Sabbath was well understood by them, and 
that it had come to them from the patriarchal 
age, before their bondage in Egypt. 
GIVING OF THE LAW. 
A careful study of the history of the organ- 
ization of the Jewish nation reveals the 
following important facts : 

1. The decalogue was given first in order of 

* 26th Verse. 
j 28th Verse. 



22 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

time, as the embodiment of all moral law, 
the foundation of all government 

2. Certain ceremonies were instituted teach- 
ing physical and spiritual purity, offering for- 
giveness through faith and obedience, and 
pointing to a coming Savior. 

3. Civil and Eccle^iastico-civil regulations 
were made for the organization of the nation, 
and the enforcement of obedience to the 
laws of the decalogue, which by its nature, 
and by the circumstances that attended the 
giving of it, is shown to be entirely distinct 
from the ceremonial and civil regulations. 
That nine of these ten laws are eternal is un- 
questioned. Some are found who claim that 
the Sabbath Law embodied in the fourth 
commandment is ceremonial and not moral. 
If the claim be true., then God, the eternal in 
wisdom, placed it where it did not belong, and 
so deceived, not only the Israelites, but all 
the world. By such missplacement, too, the 
ceremonial code was left imperfect, in a very 
important particular. It is an unquestioned 
fact that the Jews never deemed the Sabbath 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 23 

Law as ceremonial. God predicates the Sab- 
bath Law upon His own example, and teaches 
that it finds its beginning and authority in His 
acts at the close of the creative work ; while, 
if the above claim be true, it was not com- 
memorative of God and His work, but 
typical of Christ A theory which thus 
charges God with ignorance or premeditated 
deception, or with both, sinks at once under 
the weight of its own inconsistency. 




CHAPTER II. 
Teachings of Christ, 

HEIST is the central figure in both 
dispensations. If new expressions of 
the Father's will are to be made in 
connection with the work of Christ 
on earth, they must be made by the "Im- 
manuel," who is thus " reconciling the world 
unto himself." It is therefore befitting to 
inquire whether Christ taught the abrogation 
of the decalogue of which the Sabbath Law 
is a part. Let his own words answer : 

" Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the 
prophets. I am not come to destroy, hut to fulfill. For 
verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one 
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, until 
all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one 
of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, 
he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven ; 






SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 25 

but whosoever shall do and teach them, shall be called 
great in the kingdom of heaven."* 

When Christ speaks of the law (Ton Nomon) 
in these emphathic words, He cannot mean 
the ceremonial code, for these ceremonies were 
typical of Him and must pass away with His 
death. Besides this, the word fulfill (Pleerosai) 
means the opposite of destruction. (Katalusai) 
Christ fulfilled the law by perfect obedience to 
it. He corrected false interpretations, and in- 
tensified its claims. He taught obedience to 
it in the spirit as well as the letter, and pred- 
icated obedience on love rather than fear. 
Such a work could not have been done in con- 
nection with the dying ceremonies of the 
Jewish system. Such a work Christ did do 
with reference to the decalogue. In connec- 
tion with the passages above quoted Christ im- 
mediately refers to two laws from the decalogue, 
explains and enforces their meaning in a way 
far more broad and deep than those who listened 
to Him were wont to conceive of them. 

* Matthew 5: 17-19. 



26 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

On another occasion* a certain shrewd 
lawyer sought to entrap the Savior by asking 
"which is the greatest commandment in the 
law." The question has no meaning unless 
it be applied to the decalogue, and Christ's 
answer includes all the commandments of the 
decalogue and thus avoids the trap designed 
by the questioner who sought to lead Him into 
some distinction between laws known to be 
equal in their nature and extent. 

In the sixteenth chapter of Luke,f Christ 
again affirms in the strongest language, that 
"It is easier for heaven and earth to pass 
away than for one jot or one tittle of the law 
to fail." Language could not be plainer than 
that which is used in these statements. 

These sentiments accord fully with the 
practice of Christ relative to the Sabbath. 
He boldly condemned the unnatural rigidities 
which the Jews had attached to the observance 
of it and taught that works of mercy were to 
be freely done on that day ; that it was made 

* Matthew 22: 35-40. 
f 17tli verse. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 27 

for man's good, and not his injury. But He 
never taught that that which was "made for 
man/' was to be abrogated or unsanctified. 
Neither did He delegate to His disciples any 
power to teach the abrogation of the Law or 
the Sabbath. On the contrary, their repre- 
sentative writings contain the same clear 
testimony in favor of the perpetuity of the 
Law, and show the same practical observance 
of the Sabbath. Paul, the great reasoner, 
among the Apostles, after an exhaustive dis- 
cussion concerning the relations between the 
Law and the Gospel, concludes the whole 
matter in these words : 

" Do we then make void the law through faith ? 
God forbid ! Yea, we establish the law.* 

Again in the same epistlef he presents a 

conclusive argument starting from the axiom 

that " where there is no law there is no sin." 

Showing that since death, which came by sin, 

reigned from Adam to Moses ; therefore the 

law then existed, and, by the same reasoning 

* Romans 3: 31. 
f Romans 5: 13-14. 



•28 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

that if there be no law under the gospel dis- 
pensation there can be no sin ; if no sin, 
then no Savior from sin, and Christ died in 
vain, if by his death he destroyed the law. 
In another place Paul contrasts the decalogue 
with the ceremonial code and declares the 
worthlessness of the one and the binding 
character of the other, in these words : 

" Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is noth- 
ing, but the keeping of the Commandments of God."* 

Thus, in a plain and unequivocal way, Paul 
teaches as his master taught, f 

EXAMPLE. 

The example of Christ and his Apostles is 
in full harmony with their teachings. During 
Christ's life, while his disciples were with 
Him, the Sabbath was always observed' by 
Him and them. In all His acts there is no 
hint that the Law was to be annulled. On 
the contrary, Christ speaks prophetically of 

* Corinthians 7: 19. 

f Passages quoted from Paul's writings, to prove 
[ ij the abrogation of the law will be fully examined 
in another place. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 29- 

the Sabbath as an existing institution at the 
time when Jerusalem should be destroyed, "*" 
and tells His disciples to pray that their flight 
might not occur on that day, knowing that 
this destruction would not come until long 
after His death. 

Did the Apostles observe the Sabbath ? 
The book of Acts is the main source of 
history concerning these men. It tells where 
they journeyed, what they preached, and 
what befell them. — The thirteenth chapter f 
contains the following account : 

" But when they departed from Perga they came to 
Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on 
the Sabbath day and sat down." 

Being invited to speak Paul preached to 
them concerning Christ, and especially 
conerninp; His death and resurrection; — a 
significant fact to be carefully noted and more 
fully examined hereafter. To say that this 
was done by the Apostles, as Jews, is to 
charge them with unmanly dessembling. 

* Matthew 24: 20. 
f 14th Verse 



30 SABBATH AND SUNDAY, 

They were christians teaching others to be- 
come christians. Neither did they seek the 
synagogue on the Sabbath simply to teach 
the Jews ; for it is stated in this same chapter, 
that : 

■" When the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, 
the Gentiles besought that these words might be 
preached to them the next Sabbath day. And the next 
Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to 
hear the word of God." * 

Pursuing the history through the next 
chapter, we find Paul and his companions con- 
tinuing to travel from place to place, preaching 
and gathering churches, until the calling of 
the council at Jerusalem, an account of which 
is found in the fifteenth chapter. This council 
and its decisions have a direct bearing upon 
the question under consideration. The work 
of the council was to decide how far Gentile 
converts should be required to conforjn to 
those ordinances and ceremonies which were 
peculiarly Jewish. Had the Sabbath been 
deemed as belonging to this category, some 

* 42d, and 44th Verses. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 31 

reference to it could not have been avoided, 
since trie Jews deemed it of paramount im- 
portance, and Paul and his companions had 
just come from a tour among the Grentiles to 
whom they had taught its observance. The 
silence of that council concerning the Sabbath 
and its decisions relative to minor questions 
is strong presumptive evidence that the Sab- 
bath was openly recognized and observed by 
all, as an universal law of the fourth com- 
mandment. 

At the conclusion of this council Paul and 
Silas set out in one direction, and Barnabas 
and Mark in another, to re-visit those churches 
already formed, and preach the Word in other 
fields. The history of this tour shows the 
same recognition and observance of the Sab- 
bath. It is said* that they came to Phillippi, 
"the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and 
abode there certain days," and, in the words 
of the historian : 

" On the Sabbath day we went ont of the city by a 
river side, where prayer was wont to be made ; and we 

* Acts 16: 12-13. 



32 SABBATH A^ID SUNDAY. 

sat down and spake unto the women which resorted 
thither." 



This seems to have been a place for out- 
door worship in a city which was probably 
destitute of a synagogue. This was twenty 
years after the resurrection, and among 
those who of all others would be most likely 
to discard the Sabbath. From Phillippi the 
apostles proceeded to Thesolonica. 

" Where there was a synagogue of the Jews," and 
" Paul as his manner was, went in unto them, and three 
Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." 

" Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have 
suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that this 
Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. 

"And some of them believed, and consorted with 
Paul and Silas ; and of the devout Greeks a great 
multitude, and of the chief women not a few." 

Passing from thence to Berea, and then to 
Athens, in both of which places Paul taught 
in the synagogues, they came to Corinth 
where Paul remained. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 33 

" A year and six months, and reasoned in the syna- 
gogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the 

Greeks." *f 

The nineteenth, chapter relates that Paul 
taught for two years and three months a 
Ephesus. "So that all they which dwelt in 
Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both 
Jews and Greeks." 

Collating all these facts, and summing up 
the case as regards the example of Christ and 
His Apostles, it stands as follows : 

1. During the life of Christ the Sabbath was 
always observed by Him and His followers. 
He corrected the errors and false ideas which 
were held concerning it, but gave no hint that 
it was to be abrogated. 

2. The book of Acts gives a connected 
history of the recognition and observance of 
the Sabbath by the Apostles while they were 

* Acts 18: 4-11. 

f It was at this time that Paul organized the church at 
Corinth, to which he wrote five years later, telling 
them to lay by their gifts for the poor at Jerusalem, on 
the first day of the week. See an examination of this 
passage in the next chapter. 



34 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. . 

organizing many of the churches spoken of 
in the New Testament. These references 
extend over a period of eight or nine years, 
the last of them being at least twenty years 
after the resurrection. 

3. In all the history of the doings and 
teachings of the Apostles there is not the 
remotest reference to the abrogation of the 
Sabbath. 

Had there been any change made or begin- 
ning to be made, or any authority for the 
abrogation of the Sabbath Law^ the Apostles 
must have known it. To claim that there 
was, is therefore to charge them with studi- 
ously concealing the truth. And also, with 
recognizing and calling a day the Sabbath 
which was not the Sabbath. 

Add to these considerations the following 
facts : 

(a) The last of the Epistles, and the Book 
of Kevelation, were written about the year 
ninety-five. In none of these is there any tr&ce 
of the change of the Sabbath, nor is the abroga- 
tion of the Sabbath Law taught in them. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 35 

lb) The Sabbath is mentioned in the New 
Testament sixty times, and always in its 
appropriate character. 

Thus the, Law and the Grospel are in 
harmony, and teach that "the sey'enth day is 
the Sabbath of the Lord thy Grod." 

But some will say, " Christ and His Apostles 
did all this as Jews, simply." If this be true, 
then Christ lived and taught simply as a Jew 
.and not as the Savior of the world. On the 
contrary He was at war with the false and 
extravagant notions of Judaism concerning 
questions of -truth and duty. If Christ 
were not a "Christian," but a "Jew," what 
becomes of the system which He taught ? If 
His first followers who periled all for Him 
.•and sealed their faith with their blood, were 
•only Jews, or worse, were dissemblers, doing 
that which christians ought not to do for sake 
of policy, where shall christians be found? — 
The idea dies of its own inconsistency. More 
than this, Bible history repeatedly states that 
the Greeks were taught on the Sabbath the 
same as the Jews, and in those churches where 



36 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the Greek element predominated there is no 
trace of any different teaching or custom on this 
point. The Jews kept up their national insti- 
tutions, such as circumcision and the passover, 
while all christians accepted the Sabbath as a 
part of the Law of God. Indeed the popular 
outcry against the Sabbath as u Jewish " savors 
more of prejudice and ignorance than of con- 
sistency and charity. Christ was in all respects r 
as regards nationality, a Jew. So were all 
the writers of the Old Testament, and all the 
writers of the New Testament. God has 
given the world no word of inspiration from 
Gentile pen, or Gentile lips. Is the Bible 
therefore " Jewish ?" The Sabbath, if possible, 
is less Jewish than the Bible. It had its 
beginning long before a Jew was born. It is 
God's day marked by His own example, and 
sanctified by His blessing, for the race of 
man, beginning when the race began, and can 
end only when the race shall cease to exist. 
Christ recognized it under the Gospel as He 
recognized each of the other eternal laws with 
which it is associated in the decalogue ; recog- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY, 37 

nized them as the everlasting words of His 
Father whose law He came to magnify and 
fulfill. It tells of pitiable weakness, and 
shameful irreverence to attempt to thrust out 
and stigmatize any part of Grod's truth as 
"Jewish" when all of God's promises and all 
Bible truth have come to us through the 
Hebrew nation. 



CHAPTER III. 
Opposing Theories Examined, 



:o: 



NO-SABBATH THEORY. 




Y this is meant the prevalent theory 
that there is no sacred time under 
the gospel dispensation. That the 
Sabbath was only a Jewish insti- 
tution, which began with the Hebrew nation, 
and was abrogated at the death of Christ. 
Against such a theory the following points 
have already been established. 

1. The Sabbath Law, being a primary law 
in moral government, is necessarily co-existent 
with that government. 

2. The Sabbath as God's memorial, His 
monument in time, came into being when God 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 39 

rested upon the seventh, day, and blessed and 
sanctified it. 

3. The Sabbath Law grew out of the rela- 
tions which necessarily exist between the 
creator and the creature, and meets certain 
universal demands in human life ; it cannot 
therefore cease until the relations and demands 
shall cease. 

4. The Bible history shows that the Sabbath 
was observed previous to the organization of 
the Hebrew nation. 

5. AVhen Jehovah gave the eternal laws of 
His government to the world, in the decalogue, 
He placed the Sabbath Law in the midst of 
them. 

6. The Bible nowhere represents the Sabbath 
as a ceremonial institution. It has nothing in 
common with those festival days, which, as a 
part of the ceremonial code, pointed to Christ. 

7. Christ and His Apostles taught the per- 
petuity of the Law, and always observed the 
Sabbath. 



40 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Such an accumulation of evidence is enough 
to justify these pages in giving the " No-Sab- 
bath " theory no further notice. Nevertheless, 
it were better to examine its leading claims. 
The following is a representatve passage from 
the Old Testament : 

" The Lord our God made a covenant with us in 
Horeb." " The Lord made not this covenant with our 
fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us alive 
here this day/'* 

The claim is made that the decalogue was 
this covenant. A little examination will show 
that the covenant was not God's Law, but an 
agreement between Jehovah and His people, 
by which they were bound to keep that law, 
and He, upon such obedience, to grant to them 
certain promised blessings. The case is a very 
plain one, and needs no further remark. The 
fifteenth verse reads as follows : 

" And remember that thou wast a servant in the land 
of Egypt, and that the Lord Thy God brought thee out 
thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out 
arm ; therefore the Lord thy Gfod commanded thee to 
keep the Sabbath day.*' 

* Deut, 5: 2-3-15. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 41 

In the face of the plain statement made by 
Jehovah in the decalogue, the claim is here 
made that the deliverance from Egypt was the 
cause why the Sabbath was instituted. The 
reader will remember that the goodness of God 
in delivering the Israelites from bondage is 
often used as a reason for their obedience to 
all His commandments.* If, therefore, the 
claim of the No-Sabbath theory be correct. 
all the laws of the decalogue were given for 
that reason. This is absurd. The whole 
truth is contained in a single sentence, namely : 
God's goodness to the Israelites is presented as 
a reason why they should obey Him. In the 
case quoted, the latter clause of the fourteenth 
verse shows that the Israelites were there urged 
to allow their servants the blessing of the 
Sabbath rest, and they are referred to their 
own bondage in Egypt, in contrast with their 
delivered state, to strengthen this appeal to 
their obedience. But if there were any doubt 
as to the correctness of this simple explana- 
tion, the fact that the Jews never understood 

* See Exodus, 20: 2. Lev. 26: 13. Psalm, 81: 9-10, etc. 



42 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the Sabbath as commemorative of their deliv- 
erance from Egypt, settles the question. More 
than this, the " passover " was given, and is 
yet observed, to commemorate that deliver- 
ance. Its whole meaning and language befit 
such an end, while the rest of the Sabbath is in 
no way significant of the turmoil and hurry of 
the exode. Besides all this, the No-Sabbath 
theory contradicts Grod's plain words, in 
Genesis, 2: 3, and Exodus, 20: 11. 

Only a few " proof texts " are quoted from 
the New Testament in support of the No-Sab- 
bath theory. The following from Paul's letter 
to the Romans* is deemed a strong one. 

" Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to 
doubtful disputations."! 

" For one beiieveth he may eat all things ; another 
who is weak, eateth herbs." 

" Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth 
not ; and let not him which eateth not, judge him that 
eateth ; for God hath received him." 

"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? 
To his own master he standeth or falleth ; yea he shall 
be holden up ; for God is able to make him stand." 

* 14: 1-7. 

f" Not to judge his doubtful thoughts." 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 43: 

" One man esteemeth one day above another ; another 
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully 
persuaded in his own mind." 

" He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the 
Lord, and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he 
doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord,, 
for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to 
the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." 

This passage concerning the observance of 
clays is thus given with its contexts, that the 
reader may the more readily see what theme 
Paul is considering. It will be at once appar- 
ent that it is the question of receiving into 
christian fellowship those whose " weak faith " 
still led them to observe the rules concern- 
ing clean and unclean food, and the festivals of 
the ceremonial code. The Sabbath is in no 
way referred to, and the whole discourse for- 
bids the idea of applying the language of the- 
sixth verse to it. The conclusions concerning 
meats, and the like, in the thirteenth verse and 
the verses following it, confirm this idea, 
Paul being his own interpreter, also makes 
this doubly sure ; for, in the seventh chapter* 

* 12th verse. 



* 



44 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

of this same epistle, he speaks of the deca- 
logue of which the Sabbath 9 Law is a part, in 
these words. 

" Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment 
holy, and just, and good." 

A careful study of this seventh chapter of 
Romans will show that Paul places the high- 
est importance upon the observance of that 
law which convicts of sin, and is thus our 
"schoolmaster," leading us to Christ for for- 
giveness. And James, speaking of the same 
law, says :* 

" For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
offend in one point, he is guilty of all." 

Paul could not say in* one breath that such 
a law was of great importance, and in the next 
that it was of little or no importance. 

The second chapter of Colossi ansf is often 
quoted as a clear statement of the No-Sabbath 
theory. 

* 2: 10. 

f 10 th and 17th verses. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 45 

" Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink/* 
or in respect of an holy day, f or of the new moon, or 
of the Sabbath days!' % 

" Which are a shadow of things to come ; but the 
body is Christ." 

Here, again, we have the exact idea which 
Paul wrote to the Romans, only in different- 
words. The passage fully explains itself. It 
distinctly states that no man is to be judged 
concerning those meats and drinks, new moons 
and Sabbaths, which were a shadow of Christ. 
The seventh day, the Sabbath of God, is in no 
sense a shadow of Christ, but a commemorator 
of Jehovah ; hence, the weekly Sabbath cannot 
be here meant. 

The third chapter of second Corinthians is 
also impressed to do duty in defence of the No- 
Sabbath theory. The following passage em- 
bodies the testimony, so-called : 

"But if the ministration of death written and engrav- 
en in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel 
could not steadfastly look upon the face of Moses for 

* Greek, " For eating or drinking." 
f Greek, " concerning the participating in a holy 
festival," 

X Greek, " Sabbaths." 



46 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

"the glory of liis countenance — which glory was to be 
done away — how shall not the ministration of the spirit 
be rather glorious ?" etc. * 

A careful reading will show that the contrast 
here introduced is between the glory of the 
Mosaic dispensation as compared with the 
Christian. It is not the decalogue which is to 
be "done away," but the "glory" of the former 
ministration, which must, be lost before 
the surpassing glory of the latter one. The pas- 
sage needs no further comment. 

These passages form the stronghold of the 
No -Sabbath theory in the New Testament. 
We leave them without further remark, and 
only pause to call the attention of the reader 
to the utter ruin which this theory works in 
the realm of moral obligation. 

> 1. If the decalogue was abolished by the 
death of Christ, then Christ by His death pre- 
vented the possibility of sin, to redeem man 
from which, He died. 

2. "Sin is not imputed where there is no 

* 7th and 8th Verses. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 47 

law/'^hence the consciousness of sin which men 
feel under the claims of the Gospel, is a mere 
mockery, and all faith in Christ is but a farce. 
It only increases the difficulty to say that the 
law is written in the hearts of believers. If 
that be true, then : 

3. None but believers in Christ can be con- 
victed of sin, for no others can know the law 
which convicts of sin. Therefore those who 
reject Christ, thereby become, at least nega- 
tively, righteous by refusing to come where 
they can be convicted of sin. Thus does the 
No-Sabbath theory make infidelity better 
than belief, and rejection of Christ, the only 
means of salvation. It leads to endless absurd- 
ities, and the overthrow of all moral govern- 
ment, It contradicts the plain words of God, 
and puts darkness for light. It must sink 
under the weight of its own inconsistencies. 
Its fruitage in human life has ever been 
bitterness and ashes. 

"CHANGE OF THE DAY" THEORY. 

The Puritan branch of Protestants claim 
*Rom. 5: 13. 



48 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

that the Sabbath has been changed by divine 
authority, from the seventh to the first day of 
the week. This theory is based upon the 
assumption that the Sabbath institution is a 
separate thing from the Sabbath day, and 
hence that the Sabbath Law may be applied 
to any seventh portion of time. In opposition 
to this theory it has been shown : 

1. That the Sabbath Law and the Sabbath 
day are inseparable, and that the Sabbatic 
institution is the result of obedience to the 
Sabbath Law, and ceases to exist when that 
law is broken. 

2. That there could have been no Sabbath 
if Grod had not rested on a definite clay, for a 
definite purpose, which no other day could 
answer. Having rested on a definite day, He 
blessed and sanctified that day, and thus 
made it the Sabbath. To say that the Sabbath 
is only an indefinite seventh part of time, is 
to say that God rested on an indefinite 
seventh part of time, and blessed an indefinite 
seventh part of time, all of which is illogical 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 49 

and absurd. This theory also "begs the 
question" by adhering to the septenary 
division of time, and rejecting the definite 
day. Upon such an illogical assumption the 
whole theory of a change of the Sabbath is 
based. Nevertheless, to avoid the charge of 
unfairness, we shall examine the reasons 
offered in support of this theory. They are 
in substance as follows : 

1. Christ rose from the dead on the first 
day of the week. 

2. The Apostles met on that day for public 
worship, and to commemorate his resurrection. 

The first reason is usually separated into the 
following propositions : 

(a) Eedemption is a greater work than 
creation. 

(b) Eedemption was completed at the resur- 
rection. 

(c) Christ rose from the dead on the first 
day of the week. 

Conclusion. Therefore, since the resurrec- 



50 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

tion, the Sabbath Law applies to the first day 
of the week, and not to the seventh. 

It were answer enough to the above theory 
to suggest that the " conclusion" is not a 
legitimate deduction from the "premises," 
Indeed, the premises overthrow the conclu- 
sion; for, if "redemption" is a greater work 
than "creation," and different; then that 
which was only sufficient to commemorate 
creation, cannot commemorate redemption. 
Different works must be differently commem- 
orated, and the greater cannot be commem- 
orated by that which only measures the less. 
Again, the seventh day can only cease to be 
sacred to God, and hence to be the Sabbath, 
when the causes which made it the Sabbath 
shall cease to exist. This can never be, since 
those causes were the words and acts of the 
infinite Jehovah. 

These propositions are equally unsound 
when considered separately. The first one, in 
saying that "Eedemption is a greater work 
than creation," assumes that finite man can 
measure the work of "Creation," and compre- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 51 

hend the goodness, power, and wisdom of the 
infinite as therein displayed. That he can look 
into and understand the work of Eedemption 
as the angels desired to, but were not able; 
comprehending the infinite love and mercy of 
God as wrought out in that plan, and having 
thus comprehended and measured two infinite 
works, can compare one with the other, 
and decide which of them is the greater infinity. 
Such presumption and want of logic combine 
to crush the proposition which contains them. 

The second proposition asserts that u Ee- 
demption was completed at the resurrection.' 7 
This is faulty in point of fact. The work of 
redemption began with the advent of sin. 
Christ was as a iamb slain from the foundation 
of the world. * The first sacrifice that smoked 
on the altars of Eden told of redemption. 
The work of the Eedeemer will continue 
until, coming as Judge of men, he shall put 
all things under His feet, and deliver up the 
Kingdom unto His Father. Instead of ceas- 
ing His work at the resurrection, Christ as- 

* Rev. 13: 8. 



52 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

cended to the right hand of the Father, to be 
our intercessor, until, in the fullness of time 
He shall come again to gather His bretheren, 
destroy His enemies, triumph over death 
by resurrecting the saints, and so deliver 
the redeemed and glorified universe up to 
God.* If any one point marks the close of 
the earth-life of Christ as Eedeemer among 
men, it is the hour of His death, when He 
cried, " it is finished," and died.f Hence 
the second proposition fails. 

The third proposition — " Christ rose from 
the grave on the first day of the week," — has 
been usually accepted without question. Nei- 
the fact of the resurrection, nor the time when 
it occurred, has any logical connection with the 
Sabbath question, or rightful place in the Sab- 
bath argument; but since the public mind 
associates the two questions it is needful to 
pass this third proposition under a careful 
review in order that the reader may see on 
what grounds the popular theory rests ; and 

* 1 Corinthians 15: 24-29. 
f John 19: 30. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 53 

before taking up the historic accounts by the 
evangelists, certain outlying facts need to be 
examined. Christ uttered an important 
prophecy concerning this matter in the 
tvjelvth chapter of Matthew,* which reads as 
follows : 

" Then certain of the Scribes and of the Pharisees 
answered saying : Master, we would see a sign from 
Thee." 

" But He answered and said unto them, an evil and 
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there 
shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet 
Jonas." 

" For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the 
whale's belly ; so shall the Son of man be three days 
and three nights in the heart of the earth." 

The circumstances forbid all indefiniteness 
of expression. It is a case in which Christ 
offers to His enemies a test involving not 
simply the truthfulness of His words, 
but the proof that He was the Son of God. 
In keeping with this thought, the language 
respecting the time is carefully and exactly 
worded. 

* 3841st, verses. 



54 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

The Greek says 

"Qarcep yap fjv 'lidvag ev ry 'KotA.ia tov kt/tovc rpelg rj/jLEpac, 
teal rpelg vvnTar; ovrog earcu 6 vlog tov avdptJirov ev rrj Kapdia 
ttjq yrjr rpelg yjuepac; fcai rpelg vvurag. 

The Latin says : 

" Sicut enim f uit Jonas in ventre ceti tres dies et tres 
noctes : sic erit Filius liominis in corde terrse tres dies 
et tres noctes." 

The original account in Jonah* reads as 
follows ; 

" And Jonah was in tlie belly of the fish three days 
and three nights." 

The Greek of the Septuagint, says : 

Kal r/v Itdvar hv tt) noikia tov ktJtovz Tpelg rjfiepag aai 
Tpelg VVKTCIQ. 

The Hebrew is in the same construction 
and equally definite. 

In this prophecy one point is unmistakably 
established, namely: the length of the time 
during which Christ must remain in the grave. 
This forms an important starting point, or 
rather, the basis of investigation. 

The time when Christ was entombed is 

* l: 17. 









SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 55 

equally clear and definite. Matthew* says : 

" When the even was come, there came a rich man of 
Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' 
disciple." 

" He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. 
Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered." 

" And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped 
it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb 
which he had hewn out in the rock ; and he rolled a 
great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed." 

The Greek of the passage which refers to 
the time, is : — o^iag 6e yevofihrjg. — which the Bi- 
ble Union Translation renders literally, by 
the phrase; "when it was late." John 
corroborates the words of Matthew and showsf 
that it was late in the day, just before the 
setting of the sun, that the body of Christ 
was laid in the grave. By the words of His 
own prophecy, then, He must have risen at an 
hour in the day corresponding to the hour of 
His entombment. Thus two points are estab- 
lished, namely : the time of the day when the 
resurrection must occur, and the length of 

* 27: 57-61. 

f 19: 31, 38, 42. 



56 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

time which must intervene between the 
entombment and the resurrection. We are 
now prepared to examine the history of the 
resurrection as given by the evangelists. 

Three of the evangelists speak of the res- 
urrection only in general terms, giving neither 
the time when it occurred, nor the circum- 
stances attending it. John says :* 

" The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene 
early, when it was yet dark, nnto the sepulchre, and 
.seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre," etc. 

Luke says :f 

" Now upon the first day of the week, very early in 
the morning, they came unto the sepulchre bringing the 
spices which they had prepared, and certain others with 
them." 

"And they found the stone rolled away from the 
sepulchre." 

" And they entered in, and found not the body of the 
Lord Jesus." 

Mark says \% 

" And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene 
and Mary the Mother of James, and Salome, had bought 
sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him." 

*20: 1. 
f24: 1-3. 
116: 1st, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 57 

" And very early in the morning, the first day of the 
week they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the 
sun." 

These accounts teach nothing more than 
the fact that when the parties mentioned 
visited the sepulchre, they found it empty. 
Christ had risen and gone. But Matthew 
gives an account quite different, and more 
definite ; one which tells of a visit 'previous to 
the one spoken of by the other three writers 
just examined. The following is the account :* 

" In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn 
toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene, 
and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." 

" And behold there wasf a great earthquake ; for the 
angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, and came 
and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it." 

" His countenance was like lightning and his raiment 
white as snow." 

"And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and 
became as dead men!' 

" And the angel answered and said unto the women, 
Fear not ye ; for I know that ye seek Jesus which was 
crucified." 

" He is not here ; for He is risen as He said, come, 
see the place where the Lord lay," etc. 

* 28 : 1-8. 

f Margin, " had been " Greek, eyei-era. 



58 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Here is an account minute in details respect- 
ing both the time of the resurrection, and the 
circumstances connected with it. It agrees in 
all particulars with the requirements of the 
prophecy of Christ and the time of His en- 
tombment. The Bible Union translation 
renders ,the opening clause of the twenty 
eighth chapter, literally ; — "Late in the Sab- 
bath."* The Sabbath closed at sunset. " Late 
in the Sabbath," must have been a little before 
sunset ; a point of time exactly corresponding 
to the hour of the entombment. No amount 
of "surmising " or "supposing" can change 
this plain statement. If the exegetical argu- 
ment be sought from the " construction of 
the Greek" it is equally as plain and strong. 
o^pe, when constructed with a noun in the 
genitive case, always means "late." Indeed 
the possessive idea denoted by- the genitive 
necessitates that the point of time denoted 
by oipE be contained within the time denoted 
by the noun. So here, cafii3aTuv holds dips 
within its limits. f OipE, when constructed with 

* Orjje 6e Gaj3j3aTuv, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 59 

a verb in the infinitive may sometimes mean 
"after," in the sense of "too late." when 
referring to an action. But in the case under 
consideration it cannot thus mean. No com- 
mentator has attempted to thus interpret this 
passage except upon the assumption , or upon 
the supposition that Matthew meant something 
which he did not say, and that his account 
must be forced to agree with the other three 
and thus give some shadow of support to 
the popular theory. Nor is the word translated 
"dawn" opposed to the view here expressed. 

It is emtyuoKovori, from Ennpuonu. It IS USed 

but once, besides this, in the New Testa- 
ment. That use is by Luke,* where the 
Passover Sabbath following the crucifixion 
is said to "draw on." This is a natural and 
legitimate* translation of the word, and there 
is no reason why it should not be thus ren- 
dered in Matthew 28: 1. Such a rendering 
only agrees with the facts. The Sabbath 
closed at sunset on the seventh day of the 
week. At the same hour the first day of 
* 23: 54. 



60 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the week " drew on," " came in sight," "began 
to appear." Translators of the New Testa- 
ment have been more truthful to the correct 
rendering than interpreters have been to the 
correct exegesis, as the following facts testify : 

The Syriac Peshito version, which being 
in a cognate language has great claims to 
accuracy of thought and expression, renders 
this passage, "In the evening of the Sabbath." 
The Latin of the Yulgate renders it by the 
same words. Beza's Latin translation has the 
same. Tyndale's translation says : " The 
Sabboth day at even." Coverdale's translation 
reads : " Upon the evening of the Sabbath 
holy-day." Cranmer's, the Genevan, and the 
Bishop's versions, all render it, "In the latter 
end of the Sabbath day." The Bible Union, 
as already referred to, renders the Greek 
literally — "Late in the Sabbath." 

Thus is the weight of past and present 
scholarship thiown in favor of the explanation 
here given. This explanation shows that the 
prophecy of Christ, and the accounts of the 
entombment, and of the resurrection agree 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 61 

with extreme fidelity. And the accounts of 
the evangelists agree with each other when 
the fact is thus recognized that in the opening 
of the twenty-eighth chapter Matthew speaks 
of the first visit' to the sepulchre "late in the 
Sabbath," to which visit the other evangelists 
do not refer; but to a second visit made early 
on the following morning. Matthew's account 
of the first visit evidently closes with the 
eighth verse, and in the ninth he passes to the 
scenes of the next morning. Thus the follow- 
ing conclusions are reached : 

Christ was crucified and entombed on the 
fourth day of the week, commonly called 
Wednesday. He lay in the grave "three 
days and three nights," and rose "late in the 
Sabbath," at an hour corresponding with the 
hour of His entombment, at which time two* 
of the women " came to see the sepulchre." 

There are certain circumstantial evidences, 
which corroborate these conclusions : 

1. Since Christ gave the length of time He 
should lie in the grave as a sign of His 
Mes-siah-ship, any failure in the fulfillment of 



62 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

that sign would have been notecj and published 
by His enemies. The fact that no such charge 
has ever been made, and only the puerile 
story of the stealing of the body been invented, 
is evidence that the prophecy was exactly 
fulfilled. 

2. On the day following the crucifixion the 
Jews went to Pilate, besought a guard for the 
tomb for three days, and attended to the 
setting of it. This they would not have done 
on the weekly Sabbath ; but they would not 
shrink from doing it on the Passover Sabbath 
which they observed less strictly than the 
weekly Sabbath. 

3. The guard was evidently set to cover a 
time three days from the entombment. Until 
that time expired not even the disciples, much 
less two lone women, would attempt to reach 
the tomb to look after the body. Hence the 
women spoken of in Matthew twenty-eighth, 
came to the tomb with the evident design of 
being present the moment the guard should 
be removed. On the other hand, if the 
popular theory be correct, Christ was laid in 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 63 

the grave late on the sixth day of the week, 
the guard was set on the seventh day, and on 
that same day, scarcely twenty -four hours 
after the entombment the women are found 
at the sepulchre, and Christ is risen. Such 
conclusions contradict the plain statements of 
the Word, and are out of accord with all the 
circumstances in the case. A circumstantial 
" objection " to the explanation here given 
is made on the claim that the two women 
would not be likely to make a second visit to 
the sepulchre on the following morning. The 
reverse is the most natural conclusion. 
A second visit seems necessary to confirm 
the hopes which the strange scenes of the 
previous evening had awakened. Hence their 
eagerness ; and taking other witnesses, they 
hasten " while it was yet dark" to come again 
to the sacred spot, to see if indeed their Lord 
had risen. This is farther confirmed by the 
fact already indicated, that the eighth verse 
of Matthew twenty-eighth seems to close the 
account of the first visit ; while from the ninth 
verse to the close of the chapter we have in 



64 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

four separate paragraphs, the whole history of 
the circumstances of the next morning and of 
the entire time up to the Ascension of Christ 
crowded into eleven verses. Thus a second 
visit is rather a confirmation of the position 
above taken, than an objection to it. 

It is pertinent to now group together more 
completely the objections to the popular 
notion concerning the resurrection. 

1. There is nowhere in the Bible any 
statement that Christ rose on the first day of 
the week. 

2. The popular claim contradicts the plain 
words of Matthew who alone gives the time 
when the resurrection occurred. 

3. The claim that Christ was entombed 
late on the sixth day of the week disagrees 
entirely with the express conditions laid 
down by Him in His prophetic words con- 
cerning the time He should lie in the grave ; 
therefore : 

4. If the popular theory be correct, Christ's 
prophecy was not fulfilled, and, by his own 
words, He is proven to have been an impostor. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 65 

All the circumstances connected with the 
burial and resurrection must also be tortured 
into unnatural relations and forced harmony. 
We can therefore only repeat the conclusion 
that Christ did not rise on the first day of the 
week. Thus, step by step, the assumptions in 
favor of a change of the Sabbath based upon 
the resurrection are swept away. 

The remaining effort at argument is predi- 
cated upon the claim that Christ and His 
Apostles authorized a change by their ex- 
ample in observing the first day of the week. 
It is hence necessary to examine the passages 
which are quoted in favor of such observance, 
in their order and with their contexts. The 
one first in order reads as follows : 

" When therefore it was evening on that day, the 
first day of the week, and the doors were shut where 
the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus 
came and stood in the midst ; and He says to them,. 
Peace be to you. And having said this He showed them 
His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced 
when they saw the Lord." (Bible Union translation.) 

Tyndale, in his version, published in 1526, renders 
this passage as follows : The same daye at nyght, which 
was the morrowe after the Sabboth daye, when the 



66 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

dores were shutt, (where the disciples were assembled 
to gedder for feare of the jews,) cam Jesus and stode 
in the myddes' and sayde to them, Peace be with yon. 
And when He had so sayde, He shewed vnto them His 
handes [and His feate] and His syde. Then were the 
disciples glad when they sawe the Lorde."* 

This was in the evening after the day on 
the morning of which the women came to the 
sepulchre and found it empty. The claim is 
that this was a meeting of the disciples to 
commemorate, sabbatically, the resurrection. 
Observe, first that no such thing is either said 
or implied in the text. On the contrary, it is 
distinctly stated that this was a secret assembly 
" for fear of the Jews." But let us look more 
fully into the doings of that day. From Luke 
(24th chapter) we learn that when the women 
told the circumstances of the morning to the 
eleven disciples " their words seemed as idle 
tales, and they believed them not." 

In the same chapter it is relatd that two of 
the disciples journeyed to Emmaus, seven and 
one half miles, during that day. Christ joined 
them on the journey, and at supper revealed 

* John 20: 19. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 67 

himself to them. They, wondering and rejoi- 
cing, returned to Jerusalem. It must have been 
late in the evening when they arrived. As they 
related their story to the other disciples Christ 
came into the assembly. Even then they 
would not believe that it was He until He had 
eaten in their presence, and explained His for- 
mer words concerning himself. Thus it is clear 
that they did not believe in His resurrection 
until late in the evening. They could not 
celebrate an event in which they did not 
believe. It was to cure this unbelief, to prove 
His resurrection and not to celebrate it, 
that Christ came. The hatred which raged 
against the disciples necessitated that they 
should secrete themselves from the fury of the 
Jews. On the evening in question they were 
thus assembled, in despondency, sorrow, and 
doubt. Had this meeting been held for the 
purpose of instituting so radical a change in a 
practice so widely affecting Christian life, and 
based upon a fact not until then believed, it 
is impossible to suppose that no mention 
would be made of the fact by the risen Savior 



68 v SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

who alone had power to make a change if one 
were possible. His silence disproves the claim. 
The next passage is also from John,* and is 
still more indefinite : 

"And after eight days, again His disciples were 
within, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors 
being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be 
unto you." 

It is claimed that this was the next first 
day, on the ground that " Sunday and Sunday 
make eight," and that the meeting was again 
in honor of the resurrection. But the account 
does not state that it was upon the eighth 
day, but "after eight days." Now the English 
after, the Latin post, and the Greek meta, are 
among the most positive words in these lan- 
guages ; and if the time spoken of was exact, 
then it must have been upon the ninth day 
at least. If the expression is indefinite, in 
the sense of the English expression " about 
eight days after," then the case is so much the 
worse for the argument. Admitting that it 
was the next first day, there is no implica- 

* 20: 26. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 69 

tion of any sabbatic character connected with 
the meeting. The simple fact of the case 
seems to be this : Thomas being absent from 
the former meeting would not believe that 
Christ had risen. At this meeting of Christ 
with them Thomas is present, and is convinced. 
The fact that Christ instructed them, proves 
nothing sabbatic, or celebrative, for His n$xt 
meeting (see next chapter,) was upon a day 
when they were fishing, and He then instructed 
them more fully than at any time before. 

Acts 2 : 1. is next claimed in proof of an 
especial sanction of the first day. The claim 
runs after this manner : " The Pentecost fell 
on the first day of the week ; God poured out 
His spirit miraculously on that day, thus 
sanctifying it, or, at least showing it an 
especial favor." Let us see whether the major 
premise of this proposition is true, viz : that 
the Pentecost fell on First-day. It was a yearly 
feast, falling on the fiftieth day reckoning from 
the day following the Passover. Thus reck- 
oning this Pentecost would have fallen on the 
first day of the week if the Savior had been 



70 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

crucifiad on the sixth day, and hence the 
Passover been held, as is claimed, on the 
seventh. We have already shown that such 
was not the case; hence the premise is in- 
correct in point of fact. But had it fallen 
upon the first day there was nothing in this 
demonstration of God's spirit which had refer- 
ence to the day of the week. It was the 
Pentecost which they met to celebrate, and 
while thus celebrating, the miraculous out- 
pouring came. The reason for choosing the 
Pentecost as the time at which to manifest 
thus the power of the Spirit is evident in the 
fact that thousands of devout men from every 
land were there, and being convinced of the 
truth of Christianity, would carry that truth 
far and wide as they returned home. There 
is another significant fact which alone w T ould 
overthrow the popular claim. The writer of 
the passage says nothing concerning the day 
of the week. Had it been the first day, just 
adopted by the Apostles as the Christian Sab- 
bath, it is not concievable that so marked an 
occurrence in its favor would have been passed 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 71 

in utter silence. 

These three passages thus indefinite and 
irrelevant form the entire array of Scripture 
quoted in favor of the proposition that Christ 
met with His disciples on Sunday, or that 
the Holy Spirit showed that day any special 
favor. The common people are deceived 
by many speakers and writers who refer to 
these passages in a general way as though 
they were but a few from among many that 
might be quoted. If the reader will carefully 
examine the Bible on this point he will at 
once modify or cast aside his faith in the 
" Change of the Sabbath." 

The history of the doings and teachings of 
the Apostles is equally devoid of any proof in 
favor of the popular theory. The book of 
Acts covers at least thirty years of time after 
the resurrection of Christ. This is the very 
period during which it is claimed that the 
change was going on under the direction of 
the Apostles and the Holy Spirit. Two stub- 
born facts oppose this claim. 

1. The resurrection of Christ as the proof 



72 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

of His Mes-siah-ship, is a prominent theme in 
the sermons which the Apostles preached 
during this period. 

Such preaching could not avoid the discus- 
sion of the change of the Sabbath, as based upon 
the resurrection, if it had then been going on. 
On the contrary the first day of the week is 
mentioned but once in the entire book. This 
fact is the more significant since Luke the 
writer of the book of Acts is especially 
careful to notice any compliance with existing 
customs. Notice the following passages from 
His Gospel : 

" According to the custom of the priest's office, his 
lot was to burn incense/'f And when the parents 
brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the cus- 
tom of the law.":); And he came to Nazareth, where he 
had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went 
into the synagogue on. the Sabbath day."§ And he 
came out and went, as he was wont, to the Mount of 
Olives."* 

f 1: 9. 

X Chap. 2: 27. 
§ Chap. 4: 16. 
* Chap. 22: 39. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 73 

In the book of Acts he says. " And on the Sabbath, 
we went out of the city by the river side, where prayer 
was wont to be made."* " They came to Thessalonica, 
where was a synagogue of the Jews ; and Paul, as his 
manner was, went in unto them."f 

These passages show that it was character- 
istic of Luke to notice compliance with exist- 
ing customs, even when no especial interest 
was attached to the fact. How, then, can we 
suppose that a compliance with a new custom, 
so important, and so full of interest to the 
narrative, would be by him passed over in 
silence. 

The passage in which a reference is made 
to the first day of the week, is in the twentieth 
chapter, sixth and seventh verses. It is as 
follows : 

" But we sailed away from Phillippi after the days of 
unleavened bread and came unto them to Troas, in five 
days, where we abode seven days,'' 

" And upon the first day of the week, we having come 
together to break bread, Paul discoursed to them, (being 
about to depart on the morrow,) and continued the dis- 

* 1G: 3. 
+ 17: 1-2. 



74 SABBATH AND SUNDAY, 

course until midnight," &c* 

It is claimed that this passage indicates a 
well understood custom of sabbatizing on the 
first day of the week. But there are the 
same difficulties here as in the cases before 
examined. We have seen that Luke is a 
careful writer, and seldom fails to speak of 
established customs. The account in this 
place is a minute one. In the third verse, and 
those following it, we are told how Paul dwelt 
three months in Greece, who accompanied 
him, and where they were from, who came 
with him on the voyage toward Troas, certain 
of whom went before, while Paul and others 
of the party, Luke included, remained at 
Phillippi until after the days of unleavened 
bread and then set out for Troas where they 
arrived after five days' journey and remained 
seven days. The evening before they set 
out for Assos, the inhabitants came in ; and 

* We have followed the translation of the Bible 
Union in using "We" instead of "disciples/' in the 
seventh verse as being in accordance with the best 
Greek copies. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 75 

so follows the minute account of the meeting 
and its attendant circumstances. Now could 
a writer so minute in unimportant matters, 
pass over in silence the fact that they there 
celebrated the new institution of the resurrec- 
tion day, had such been the case ; especially 
when the day itself was mentioned ? This is 
the more wonderful since he nowhere else even 
mentions the first day of the week in any 
manner whatever. This too refers only to the 
evening after the day. If the day was observed 
by them as a Sabbath there must have been 
religious services during the day, and these 
would naturally be more prominent than the 
evening service ; why then should so careful 
and exact a writer pass over the more impor- 
tant features of the case in silence, and leave 
the less important features with only a vague 
reference. Such a claim does great injustice 
to the scholarship of Luke, saying nothing of 
his inspiration. 

All this is upon the popular supposition 
that the meeting was held on what is now 
called Sunday evening, and that the breaking 



76 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

of bread was a " celebration of the Lord's 
Supper." There are strong reasons for reject- 
ing both these interpretations. According to 
the Jewish method of reckoning time, which 
is everywhere used by the writers of the Bible 
all of whom were Jews, this meeting must 
have been on the evening after the Sabbath, on 
what is now called "Saturday" evening, and 
hence Paul and his companions traveled all 
the next day. If to avoid this dilema, the 
Eoman reckoning be supposed, then the main 
item of the meeting, viz: the "Breaking of 
bread^" took place after midnight, and hence 
on the second day of the week. Either horn 
of this dilema destroys whatever of inferential 
evidence this passage might otherwise be sup- 
posed to afford. 

The phrase, KAaaai aprov, 'which, is translated, 
"to break bread" is repeatedly used to desig- 
nate the eating of a common meal. It is thus 
used by Luke in Acts 2: 46, where the forty- 
fifth and forty -seventh verses show that these 
were but ordinary meals. So also in Acts 27: 
37, the same terms denote the common meal 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 77 

of a company of two-hundred and seventy-six. 
We have therefore no hesitancy in giving the 
opinion that the meeting spoken of in Acts 
twentieth and seventh, was an informal gath- 
ering of Paul and his traveling companions, 
with more or less of those who dwelt at Troas,, 
at the time of the evening meal of the apostolic 
party, on the evening after the Sabbath. And 
hence that Paul and his party traveled all day 
on the first day of the week following. 
. In conclusion we ask the reader to contrast 
this one meagre and indefinite reference to the 
first day of the week in all the history of the 
doings of the Apostles for thirty years after 
Christ, with the repeated recognition of the 
Sabbath as detailed in the preceding chapter,, 
and to decide in the light of the inspired Word, 
what the example of the Apostles was concern- 
ing the Sabbath and the Sunday. 

Turning to the epistles the reader will find 
the same almost absolute silence concerning 
the first day of the week. In all the New 
Testament epistles there is but one reference 
to it, and this does not refer to it as the Sabbath, 



78 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

or as commemorative of the resurrection, or 
as in any way holy or sacred. Had the change 
been going on, had the first day been pressed 
upon the attention of the converts, and de- 
mands made for its observance, much instruc- 
tion would have been requisite to bring them 
— especially the Hebrews, to obedience. It 
is against all logic and all experience to think 
that such a change could have been made 
during such times and nothing be said con- 
cerning it. Here is the lone passage : 

" Now concerning the collection for the Saints, as I 
have given order to the churches of Galatia, so do ye. 
Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay 
by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there 
be no gathering's when I come."* 

This is claimed as an order for a public 
collection, and hence indicative of a public 
meeting on that day. The claim is only a 
far-fetched inference, and is decided by the 
expression, "lay by him in store.' 7 This 
-contains no such inference. It is the work of 
the theologian who puts such an interpreta- 

* 1 Cor. 16: 1, 2. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 79 

tion on to the passage, and not the work of 
the scholar who draws it from the passage. 
In support of this are the following facts : 

The English rendering, "let ever} 7 one of 
you lay by him in store," clearly indicates a 
personal work on the part of each man by 
himself. The Greek is equally plain, and, if 
possible, stronger. It is as follows : 

Kara /ulav Ga/3i3dro)v eKaaroe vfitiv Trap' eavTG) ridero, 
Qrjoavpi&v o, rt av evodtirai. 

It would be difficult to frame a sentence 
which would express the idea of personal 
action by one's self, more exactly. It is literal 
ly, " each one of you, by himself, lay away, 
treasuring up," The Latin is : 

"Per unam Sabbatorum miusquisqe vestrumi apud 
se reponat recondens, quod bene successerit," etc. 

Literally, "Each one of you at his own 
house lay up, putting away," etc. 

Tyndale says : " let every one off you put 
a syde at home and laye uppe." 

The Syriac Peshito, reads as follows: "let 
every one of yon lay aside and preserve at 
home." 



80 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

To this the following may be added : 

Three French versions read, "At his own house at 
home?' Luther, "By himself at homer The Dutch 
version the same. The Italian version, "In his oicn 
presence at home." The Spanish, "In- his own house." 
Portuguese " With himself." Sweedish, "Wear himself"' 
The Douay Bible, "Let every one of you put apart with 
himself." Mr. Sawyer, "let each one of you lay aside 
by himself." Beza, "At home." 

By such an array of scholarship the vague 
inference on which the common notion rests, 
is at once sunk. The direction given by Paul 
is that each man should begin the work of the 
week by putting aside what he was able for 
the poor saints at Jerusalem, in order that- 
each having thus decided what he could do, 
there need be no delay about the matter when 
he should arrive ; and this order was only 
temporary, and for a specific purpose. More 
than this, it was only five years before that 
Paul organized the Corinthian church while 
he was observing the Sabbath. Thus does 
this passage prove too weak to bear up even 
an inference in favor of a change of the 
Sabbath. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 81 

One more passage remains — Rev. 1 : 10 — 
•' I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." The 
claim is that the " Lord's day" refers to the 
first day of the week, which presupposes that 
the day was then observed as a Sabbath, or 
at least as a day of religious meeting. The 
only evidence offered is the presumption that 
it was thus used then, because it is met with 
(for the first time) in the writings of one of the 
Christian Fathers about seventy years after, 
and was afterward used to designate the First 
day. But the fact that John uses the term 
nowhere else in all his writtings, and that he 
uses it here in only an incidental manner, and 
that the epistle of Clement, written about the 
same time, makes no mention of it, and that 
the writings of the other Fathers down to the 
year 170, of which there are several fragments, 
make no mention of it, proves conclusive- 
ly, that in whatever sense John used the 
term, he did not apply it to any day of the 
week, much less to one which was being 
religiously observed. — The history of the use 
of this term as applied to the First day, will be 



82 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

more fully discussed in its proper place. 

We are now prepared to sum up the case 
as regards the example of Christ and his 
Apostles in observing the first day of the 
week. 

Six passages are quoted in favor of such 
observance. Only three of these passages 
mention the first day of the week in any 
manner. Neither of them speaks of it as 
sabbatic, or as commemorative of any event, 
or sacred, or to be regarded above other days, 
and it is only by vague and illogical inferences 
that either of them is made to produce a 
shadow of proof for such a change. Concern- 
ing the other three, it is only supposed by the 
advocates of the popular theory, that they in 
some way refer to the First day. To this 
therefore, does the " argument from example" 
come, when carefully examined. The New 
Testament never speaks of or hints at a 
change of the Sabbath ; it contains no notice 
of any commemorative or sabbatic observance 
of Sunday. It does tell of the repeated 
and continued observance of the Sabbath 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 83 

by Christ and His Apostles. Sunday observ- 
ance is a myth, as far as the Bible is concerned, 
and the theory of a " change of the Sabbath 
by divine authority," had its birth with 
English Puritanism less than three hundred 
years ago, as will be shown in a succeeding 
chapter. 



PART IT. 



CHAPTEE I 




wlstory of the sabbath, from 

the first to the fourth 

Centui^y. 

NOUGH has been collated from the 
New Testament in Part First of 
this work, to show that the Sabbath 
was observed byall Christians during 
the life of Christ and of His apostles. The 
first traces of false doctrines concerning the 
Sabbath, and of the introduction of other 
weekly festivals appear about the middle of 
the second century. They came in as a part 
of the great apostacy and the development 
of the "Man of Sin," whose character and 
work Daniel and Paul had foretold, and who 
could not be revealed until false philosophy 
from the heathen schools had crept into the 
Church, sullied its purity, and weakened its 



88 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

power. It is neither possible nor desirable to 
trace the history of the Sabbath during 
the first three centuries without noting 
those other weekly festivals which sprang 
up about the middle of the second cen- 
tury, especially since all Church Historians 
have written more or less in the interest 
of at least one of these festivals. The reader 
will readily see that the Sabbath was observed 
during these centuries and that the manner 
of its observance was affected in proportion 
as false philosophy and false festivals gained 
a place in the Church. In proportion as the 
Church went away from God, it went away 
from the true idea and observance of His 
Sabbath. 

Commencing with Giesler, who stands first 
v among modern Church Historians, we find 
the following testimony :* 

" While the Christians of Palestine, who kept the 
whole Jewish law, celebrated of course all the Jewish 
festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sab- 
bath, and, in remembrance of the closing scenes of our 

*Church History, Apostolic age to A. D. 70. Section 29. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 89 

Saviour's life, the Passover,* though without the Jew- 
ish superstitions. f Besides these, the Sunday, as the day 
of our Saviour's resurrection,^: was devoted to religious 
worship." 

If this be carefully studied, two important 
facts will appear. 1. There is no indefinite- 
ness in the statement concerning the fact that 
all Christians kept the Sabbath. 2. With ref- 
erence to the keeping of the Sunday, Griesler 
gives the passages upon which such an idea is 
founded, thus throwing upon the reader the 
responsibility of deciding for himself whether 
the evidence is sufficient to support the claim. 
We have already examined it, and found it 
utterly wanting; and it is a significant fact 
that the learned historian does not commit 
himself to the popular theory, but leaves 
each to judge for himself. We again ask 
the reader to refer the question to the New 
Testament, and to abide by its decision. 

Neander, in the following passage, also recog- 

* 1 Cor. 5 : 6-8. 
f Gal. 4 : 10, Col. 2 : 16. 

\ Acts 20 : 7, 1 Cor. 16 : 2, Apocalypse 1 : 10, 7iee Jcuria- 
kee heemera. 



90 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

nizes the observance of the Sabbath by the 
Church in general, during the first three 
centuries. 

" In the Western churches, particularly the Roman, 
where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing ten- 
dency, this very opposition produced the custom of 
celebrating the Saturday in particular as a fast day. 
This difference in customs would of course be striking 
where members of the Oriental church spent their Sab- 
bath day in the Western church."* 

Mosh^im makes a bold assertion on this 
point, much bolder than more reliable men 
have dared to make, and supports it by a very 
flimsy attempt at proof, f 

" The seventh day of the week was also observed 
as a festival, not by Christians in general, but by such 
churches only as were principally composed of Jewish 
converts ; nor did the other Christians censure this 
custom as criminal or unlawful/' 

To support this sweeping declaration, he 
gives the following foot-note. 

* History of the Christian religion and Church, during 
the first three centuries, p. 186, Rose's translation. 
Nearly the same language is used in his general history, 
vol. 1. p. 298, Torrey's translation. 

f Church History, vol. 1, cent. 1, part 2, sec. 4. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 91 

" It is in vain that many learned men have labored to 
prove, that, in all the primitive churches, both the first 
and last days of the week were observed as festivals,, 
(because) the churches of Bythinia, of which Pliny 
speaks in his letter to Trajan, had only one stated day 
for the celebration of public worship, and that was„ 
undoubtedly, the first day of the week, or what we call 
the Lord's day." 

Thus does Mosheim assert at wholesale, 
founding one assertion upon another ; for the 
statement that the churches in Bythinia had 
but "one stated day," is purely conjectural, no 
such fact appearing in the account. But the 
last clause of his first statement overthrows 
the whole; for, if the Sabbath had been 
abolished, and the Bythinians had rejected 
it, and observed only the First day, they would 
not have been so lenient as not to censure- 
" Sabbath keeping" as criminal and unlawful. 
That which they would not do themselves, 
because it was wrong, they certainly could not 
fail to censure in others.* 

* In further proof of the observance of the Sabbath 
during the first three centuries. See Man ual of Eccle- 
siastical History, by Rev. E. 8. Foidke, pp. 28 and 65, Ox- 
ford, 1857, and also, Manual of Church History, by E~ 
F. Guerick, p. 135, Andover, 1857. 



92 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Doctor Charles Hase says :* 

" The Roman Cliurcli regarded Saturday as a fast day 
in direct opposition to those who regarded it as a 
Sabbath." 

Rev. James Oragie Robertson, f states that : 

" In memory of our Lord's betrayal and crucifixion 
the fourth and sixth days of each week were kept as 
fasts, by abstaining from food until the hour at which 
He gave up the Ghost, the ninth hour, or 8 P. m. In 
the manner of observing the Seventh day the Eastern 
Church differed from the Western. The Orientals, in- 
fluenced by the neighborhood of the Jews, and by the 
ideas of Jewish converts, regarded it as a continua- 
tion of the Mosaic Sabbath, and celebrated it almost in 
the same manner as the Lord's day; while their brethren 
in the west — although not until after the time of Ter- 
tullian, extended to it the fast of the preceding day." 

Rev. Phillip Schaff bears the following tes- 
timony \\ 

" The observance of the Sabbath among the Jewish 
christians, gradually ceased. Yet the Eastern Church 
to this day marks the seventh day of the week, (except- 

* History of the Christian Church, p. 67, paragraph 
69. N. Y. 1855. 

f History of the Church, p. 158, London, 1854. 

\ History of the Christian Church, p. 372. New York 
and Edinburg, 1864. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 93 

ing only the Easter 'Sabbath,) by omiting fasting, and by 
standing in prayer ; while the Latin Church, in direct 
opposition to Judaism, made Saturday a fast day. The 
controversy on this point began as early as the end of 
the second century. Wednesday, and especially Friday , 
were devoted to the weekly commemoration of the 
sufferings and death of the Lord, and observed as days 
of penance, or watch days, with worship and half 
fasting, till three o'clock in the afternoon." 

William Cave, D. D. in a work entitled 
Primitive Christianity* testifies as follows : 

" The Sabbath, or Saturday, for so the word Sabbatum 
is constantly used in the writings of the fathers when 
speaking of it as it relates to christians, was held by 
them in great veneration, and especially in the Eastern 
parts, honored with all the public solemnities of religion. 
For which we are to know, that the Gospel in those 
parts mainly prevailing amongst the Jews, they being 
generally the first converts to the Christian faith, they 
still retained a mighty reverence for the Mosaic institu- 
tions, and especially for the Sabbath, as that which had 
been appointed by God himself as a memorial of His rest 
from the work of creation, settled by their great master 
Moses, and celebrated by their ancestors for so many 
ages as the solemn day of their public worship, and 
were therefore very loth that it should be wholly anti- 
quated and laid aside. * * Hence they usually had 
most parts of divine service performed upon that day ; 
they met together for public prayers, for reading the 

* P. 83, Oxford, 1840. 



94 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Scriptures, celebration of the Sacraments, and such like 
duties. This is plain, not only from some passages in 
Ignatius, and Clemen's Constitutions, but from writers 
of more unquestionable credit and authority. Athana- 
sius, bishop of Alexandria tells us that they assemble 
•on Saturdays, not that they were infected with Judaism, 
but only to worship Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sab- 
bath ; and Socrates, speaking of the usual times of their 
public meeting, calls the Sabbath and the Lord's day, 
the weekly festivals on which the congregation was 
wont to meet in the Church for the performance of 
divine services. Therefore the council of Laodicea 
amongst other things decreed,* that upon Saturdays 
the gospels and other scriptures should be read. Upon 
this day also, as well as upon Sunday, all fasts were 
severely prohibited, (an infallible argument they 
•counted it a festival day) one Saturday in the year only 
excepted, viz : that before Easter day, which was always 
observed as a solemn fast ; things so commonly known 
as to need no proof. * * * Thus stood the case in 
the Eastern Church ; in those in the West we find it 
somewhat different. Amongst them it was not observed 
as a religious festival, but kept as a constant fast. The 
reason whereof, (as it is given by Pope Innocent, in an 
epistle to the Bishop Eugubium, where he treats of this 
very case,) seems most probable. ' If (says he) we com- 
memorate Christ's resurrection, not only at Easter, but 
every Lord's day, and fast upon Friday, because it was 
the day of his passion, we ought not to pass by Saturday, 
which is the middle time between the days of grief and 
joy; the apostles themselves spending those two days, 

* Can. 16. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 95 

viz : Friday and the Sabbath, in great sorrow and heavi- 
ness ; and he thinks no doubt ought to be made, but that 
the apostles fasted upon those two days ; whence the 
Church had a tradition, that the sacraments were not to 
be administered on those days, and therefore concludes 
that every Saturday, or Sabbath, ought to be kept a fast. 
To the same purpose the council of Illiberis ordained- 
that a Saturday festival was an error that ought to be 
reformed, and that men ought to fast on every Sabbath. 
But, though this seems to have been the general prac- 
tice, yet it did not obtain in all places of the West alike. 
In Italy itself, it was otherwise at Milan, where Satur- 
day was a festival ; and it is said in the life of Saint 
Ambrose, who was bishop of that See, that he constantly 
dined as well upon Saturday as upon the Lords' day, 
and used also upon that day to preach to the people." 

The foregoing extracts cover a period reach- 
ing to the close of the fourth century and show 
that the Sabbath was observed until that time, 
though a part of the Church was much corrup- 
ted as to the manner of its observance. The 
earliest Church historians corroborate this idea. 
Socrates^ says : 

" Such as dwell at Rome, fast three weeks before 
Easter, except the Saturday and Sunday. * * Again, 
touching the communion, there are sundry customs, for 

* Can. 36. 

f Ecc. Hist. Liber, 5, Cap. 21. Latin edition of 1570. 



96 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

although all the churches throughout the whole world do 
celebrate and recieve the holy mysteries each returning 
week upon the Sabbath, yet the people inhabiting Alex- 
andria and Rome, from an old tradition, refuse thus to 
do. The Egyptians, who are neighbors to the Alexan- 
drians, together with the Thebians, celebrate the com- 
munion on the Sabbath." 

Again he says : 

41 Therefore, when the festivals of each week occurred, 
namely, the Saturday, and dominical day, in which they 
(Christians) were wont to assemble in the churches, they 
(the Arians) congregating in the porches of the gates of 
the city, sung such songs as were fitted to the opinions 
of Arius,"* &c. 

Sozomert, a contemporary of Socrates, writ- 
ing probably ten or fifteen years later, (about 
A. D. 460,) has the following : 

" The Sabbath, from the evening forward, for a suita- 
ble time, is used in vigils and prayers ; and the day 
following there is a public meeting of all in common, 
when each partakes of the mysteries."! 

* lb. Liber, 6, Cap. 8. 

f Liber. 7, Cap. 18. 

f The phrase "From the evening forward" shows 
that these vigils were kept on Sixth-day night, and the 
meeting on the following day was upon the Sabbath. It 
cannot mean the evening after the Sabbath, for at sunset 
the Sabbath closed. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 97 

Again he says :* 

" Likewise some meet both upon the Sabbath and 
upon the day after the Sabbath, as at Constantinople, 
and among" almost all others. At Rome and Alexandria 
they do not. Among- the Egyptians, likewise, in many 
cities and villages, there is also a sacred custom among 
all of meeting on the evening after the Sabbath, when 
the sacred mysteries are partaken of."f 

Thus men living in the fifth century, and 
having access to all the existing material, bear 
testimony to the fact that it was the almost 
universal custom of the Church at that time, 
to observe the Sabbath. Corresponding with 
this is the testimony of modern writers.. . 

Lyman Coleman, says :% 

" The observance of the Lord's day, as the first day of 
the week, was at first introduced as a separate institution. 
Both this and the Jewish Sabbath, were kept for some 
time ; finally, the latter passed wholly over into the 
former, which now took the place of the ancient Sabbath 

* Liber. 7, Cap. 19. 

f The reader will soon see why the Sabbath was not 
observed at Rome and Alexandria. Sozomen wrote 
nearly one hundred and fifty years after the passage of 
the first " Sunday Law " by Constantine, and the subse- 
quent enactments against the Sabbath. 

\ Chap. 26, sec. 2, Ancient Christianity Exemplified. 



98 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of 
the week, was strictly kept, in connection with that of 
the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the 
temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, 
the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in 
the Christian Church, but with a rigor and solemnity 
gradually diminishing, until it was wholly discontinued. 
* # * Both were observed in the Christian Church 
down to the fifth century, with this difference, that in 
the Eastern Church both days were regarded as joyful 
occasions ; but in the Western, the Jewish Sabbath was 
kept as a fast." 

Heylyn,* after giving the words of Ambrose, 
that he fasted when at Borne on the Sabbath, 
and when away from Eome did not, adds : 

" Nay, which is more, St. Augustine tells us, that 
many times in Africa, one and the self-same Church, at 
least the several Churches in the self-game province, 
had some that dined upon the Sabbath, and some that 
fasted. And in this difference it stood a long time 
together, till, in the end, the Roman Church, obtained 
the cause, and Saturday became a fast, almost through 
all parts of the Western world ; and of that alone ; the 
Eastern Churches being so far from altering their ancient 
custom, that, in the sixth Council of Constantinople, 
Anno, 692, they did admonish those of Rome to for- 
bear fasting on that day, upon pain of censure." 

* History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 2, sec. 3. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 99 

King says :* 

" For the Eastern Churches, in compliance with the 
Jewish converts, who were numerous in those parts, 
performed on the seventh day the same public religious 
services that they did on the first day, observing both 
the one and the other, as a festival. Whence Origen 
enumerates Saturday as one of the four feasts solemn- 
ized in his time, though, on the contrary, some of the 
Western Churches, that they might not seem to Judaize, 
fasted on Saturday. So that, besides tha Lord's day, 
Saturday was an usual season whereon many Churches 
solemnized their religious services." 

An old work on the *' Morality of the Fourth 
Commandment, ''f by William Twisse, D. D. 
has the following : 

" Yet, for some hundred years in the primitive 
Church, not the Lord's day only, but the Seventh day 
also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerin- 
thus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius 
writeth, and Gomarus confesseth, and Bivert also." 

"A Learned Treatise, of the Sabbath":}: by 
Edward Brerewood, Professor in Gresham 
College, London, has the following : 

*■" Primitive Church," first published 1691, pp. 126, 
127. 

f Page 9. London, 1641. 
% Page 77, London, 1630. 



100 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" And especially because it is certain (and little do 
you know of the ancient condition of the Church if you 
know it not,) that the ancient Sabbath did remain and 
was observed (together with the celebration of the 
Lord's day,) by the Christians of the East Church, above 
three hundred years after our Saviour's death." 

It is befitting to close this list of quotations 
with the following from the pen of the learned 
Joseph Bingham.* 

" We also find in ancient writers frequent mention 
made of religious assemblies on the Saturday, or Seventh 
day of the week, which was the Jewish Sabbath. It is 
not easy to tell the original of this practice, nor the 
reasons of it, because the writers of the first ages are 
altogether silent about it. In the Latin Churches, (ex- 
cepting Milan,) it was kept as a fast ; but in all the 
Greek Churches, as a festival ; I consider it here only 
as a day of public divine service. " x * * * Athanasius, 
who is one of the first that mentions it, says : Thay met 
on the Sabbath, not Miat they were infected with 
Judaism, but to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. 
And Timotheus, one of his successors in the See of 
Alexandria, says, the communion was administered on 
this day. * * * Socrates is a little more particular 
about the service ; for he says : In their assemblies on 
this day they celebrate the communion; only the 
Churches of Egypt and Thebias differed in this from 

* Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book 13, chap. 
9 : Sec. 3. 






SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 101 

the rest of the world, and even from their neighbors at 
Alexandria, that they had the communion at evening 
service. In another place, speaking of the Churches 
of Constantinople, in the time of Chrysostom, he reckons 
Saturday and Lord's day, the two great weekly festivals, 
on which they always held Church assemblies. And 
Cassian, takes notice of the Egyptian Churches, that 
among them the service of the Lord's day and the Sab- 
bath, was always the same ; for they had the lessons 
then read out of the New Testament, only one out of 
the Gospels ; and the other out of the Epistles or the 
Acts of the Apostles ; whereas, on other days they had 
them partly out of the Old Testament, and partly out 
of the New. In another place he observes that in the 
monasteries of Egypt and Thebias, they had no public 
assemblies on other days, besides morning and evening, 
except upon Saturday and the Lord's day, when they 
met at (three o'clock,*) that is nine in the morning, to 
celebrate the Communion." 

Thus appears an unbroken chain of evidence 
showing that the Sabbath was generally 
observed by the Christian Church as late as 
the fifth century. The Western Church 
had by this time come to regard it as a fast, 
and under the influence of the new-born 
Papacy, its true character had been largely set 
aside. The Eastern Church less corrupted by 

* This should read "third hour". 



102 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the Papacy, observed it more nearly in the 
true Christian spirit, and without extreme 
pharisaie rigidity. But the reader has not 
failed to notice that after the opening of the 
third century, the history of the Sabbath is 
more or less interwoven with the history of the 
Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, as weekly 
festivals or fasts. It is therefore necessary 
that we inquire when, and for what reasons 
these days came to be observed. Concerning 
the time it is only necessary to say that the 
first traces of their observance appear from 
the middle to the close of the second century. 
The reasons for observing Wednesday and 
Friday have been given sufficiently in the 
foregoing part of this chapter. It remains to 
inquire more fully concern/, ng the Sunday. 

No-Sabbathism prepared the way for Sun- 
day. This false theory originated with those 
leaders who came into the Church from the 
Pagan schools, and sought to engraft certain ele- 
ments of their former religion upon Christianity. 
The fundamental error sprang from a misap- 
prehension of the Gospel, which conceived of 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 103 

it as license without law, instead of freedom 
under law, through forgiveness. Justin Mar- 
tyr is the representative man of this time. 
He was born in Samaria, of Greek parents, 
and studied philosophy in the Platonic 
Schools. After reaching manhood he adopted 
(we dare not say was converted to) Christianity, 
as his religion, though he continued to wear 
the philosopher's garb, and as his writings 
show, held to many heathen notions. Neander 
says of him :* 

"Justin Martyr is remarkable as the first among these 
apologists whose writings have reached us, and as the 
first of those better known to us, who became a teacher 
of the Christian Church, in whom we observe an ap- 
proximation between Christianity and the Grecian, but 
especially the Platonic philosophy ; and in this respect 
he may be considered as the precursor of the Alex- 
andrian Fathers." 

The following extracts from his works pre- 
sent a fair view of jSTo-Sabbathism at its birth. 
Its character shows that it was the offspring 
of Paganism, and not the offspring of the 
Bible. In his " Dialogue vriih Trypho" he 

* History of the Church during the first three centu- 
ries, p. 410, Rose's trans. 



104 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

gives utterance to the following :* 

" If we will not acknowledge this, we must necessarily 
fall into notions that cannot be admitted ; either that 
there was not the same God in the days of Enoch, and 
all the rest, who did not practice circumcision according 
to the flesh and keep the Sabbaths and those other rites 
and ceremonies which are enjoined by the laws of Moses, 
or that He did not care that all mankind should always 
perform the same righteous acts ; which suppositions 
are absurd and ridiculous. We must therefore confess 
that it was for the sake of sinful men, that He, who is 
always the same, commanded the same things to be 
observed, and can pronounce Him friendly to man, pos- 
sessed of fore-knowledge needing nothing, just and good. 
If this be not so, tell me sirs, what are your opinions on 
the subject ? When none of them made any reply, I 
continued. I will then repeat to you, Trypho, and to 
those who wish to become proselytes, that divine doc- 
trine which I myself heard from the man of whom I 
spoke. Do you not see that the elements stay not from 
working, nor do they keep any Sabbaths. Remain as 
you were born; for, if before Abraham, circumcision 
was not needful, nor Sabbaths, feasts, nor Sacrifices, 
before Moses, neither are they so now, when, according 
to the will of God, Jesus Christ His Son has been born 
without sin, of the Virgin Mary, who was of the race 
of Abraham." 

Again he says :f 

* Library of The Fathers, vol. 40, p. 98, Sec. 23, Oxford 
edition. 

f lb. vol. 40, p. 85, Sec. 12. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 105 

" The new law commands you to keep a perpetual 
Sabbath, and you rest on one day and think that you 
are religious, not considering why that commandment 
was given you. Again, if you eat unleavened bread, 
you say that you have fulfilled the will of God ; but it 
is not by such means that the Lord our God is pleased. 
If any one of you is guilty of perjury or theft, let him 
sin no more. If any be an adulterer let him repent, and 
then he will have kept a true and pleasant Sabbath of 
God." 

Thus spake JSTo-Sabbathism at the hour of 
its birth. During the same years and from 
the pen of the same author we have the first 
authentic account of any observance of the 
Sunday by Christians. This is found in his 
First Apology, which was addressed to the 
Emperor Antonius Pius, about the year one 
hundred and fifty. This Apology was written 
as a description of the doctrines and practices 
of Christians, that their persecutions might 
thereby be mitigated. In it Justin dwells 
upon those features which were least objec 
tionable to the Emperor. Concerning Sunday, 
he says : 

* Sections 87 to 89, Chevaliers Trans. For the origi- 
nal, see Giesler's Church History. 



106 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" On the day which is called Sunday, there is an 
assembly in one place of all who dwell either in the 
towns, or in the country ; and the memoirs of the Apos- 
tles, or the writings of the prophets are read, as long 
as the time permits. Then when the reader hath ceased, 
the President delivers a discourse, in which he reminds 
and exhorts them to the imitation of all these good things. 
We then all stand up together and put forth prayers. 
Then, as we have already said, when we cease from 
prayer, bread is brought, and wine, and water ; and the 
President in like manner offers up prayers and praises 
with his utmost power ; and the people express their 
assent by saying Amen. The consecrated elements are 
then distributed and received by every one ; and a por- 
tion is sent by the deacons to those who are absent." 

" Each of those also who have abundance, and are 
willing, according to his choice, gives what he thinks 
fit, and what is collected is deposited with the President y 
who succors the fatherless and the widows, and those 
who are in necessity from disease or any other cause ; 
those also who are in bonds, and the strangers who are 
sojourning among us ; and, in a word, takes care of all 
who are in need." 

We all of us assemble together on Sunday, because 
it is the first day in which God changed darkness and 
matter, and made the world. On the same day also ? 
Jesus Christ our Saviour, rose from the dead. For He 
was crucified on the day before that of Saturn, and on 
the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the 
Sun, He appeared to His apostles and disciples and 
taught them what we now submit to your consideration. 

To judge this record fairly, two things need 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 107 

to be remembered. 

1. This "Apology" was addressed to a 
Pagan Emperor, and designed to modify his 
opposition to the Christians. This emperor 
esteemed the Sunday as a pagan festival. A 
similar regard for the day on the part of the 
Christians would lead him to look with greater 
favor upon them. Hence the care taken by 
Justin to inform him not only how the day 
was observed, but also, why. It was Justin's. 
" strong point,' 1 and he used it well. 

2. The principal reason assigned for its- 
observance is both unscriptural and fanciful. 
It shows how Justin's philosophy kept him 
from the true Christian idea that the Bible 
alone is authority. He does not even hint at 
any scriptural authority, or any precedent in 
the acts of the apostles, or the earlier Christians. 
Even the resurrection is mentioned inciden- 
tally as a secondary consideration. The rea- 
sons are those of a dreamer, not a Bible 
Christian. Well does Bishop Taylor say : 

" The first of these looks more like an excuse than a 



108 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

just reason ; for if any tiling of the creation were made 
the cause of the Sabbath, it ought to be the end, not 
the beginning ; it ought to be the rest, not the first part 
of the work ; it ought to be that which God assigned, 
not that which man should take by way of after justi- 
fication."* 

Let it therefore be remembered that this 
first observance of Sunday was not Sabbatic. 
The account is too minute to have omitted so 
important a fact, had it been true that absti- 
nence from labor formed a part of such 
observance. On this point Sir William Dom- 
villef makes the following just criticism. 

" From it" the passage above quoted from Justin " we 
learn the fact, that in somewhat more than a century 
after the death of Christ, the Sunday had come to be 
regarded as a stated day of public prayer and religious 
instruction ; but that it was observed also as a Sabbath, 
there is still no trace to be found. All that Justin states 
of the religious rites of the day is not only compatible 
with the belief that it was not Sabbatically observed, 
but authorizes by its silence on that point, a clear in- 
ference that, except during the time of divine service, 
the Christians of that period lawfully might, and 
actually did, follow their worldly pursuits on Sunday. 
This inference appears irresistable when we further 

*Ductor Dubitantium, part 1, book 2, chap. 2, sec. 45. 
•f- Examination of the six texts, p. 274, 76. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 109 

consider that Justin, in this part of his apology, is pro- 
fessedly intending to describe the mode in which Chris- 
tians observed the Sunday. He accordingly states what 
it was, which, from a sense of religious duty, they did 
on the Sunday ; but if there were anything which from 
a sense of religious duty they did not do on that day, it 
was equally within his purpose, and equally incumbent 
upon him, to notice that also ; for it must be quite as 
essential to the proper observance of the Sunday to 
omit doing what is unlawful to be done in it, as it is to 
do that which is required to be done. Yet Justin says 
not a word of the duty and the practice of abstaining 
from labor on the Sunday, a conclusive proof that no 
such duty was then known to Christians, and no such 
practice in use among them. It would be no sufficient 
answer to this argument to reply, that it was not likely 
Justin should enter into such full particulars in a 
memorial addressed to a heathen emperor. Why should 
he not ? He evidently intends to give all information 
requisite to an accurate knowledge of the subject he 
treats upon. He is even so particular as to tell the 
emperor why the Sunday was observed ; and he does 
in fact, specify every active duty belonging to the day, 
the Scripture reading, the exhortation, the public prayer , 
the sacrament and the alms-giving : why then should 
he not also inform the emperor of the one inactive duty 
of the day ; the duty of abstaining from doing in it any 
manner of work ? * * * If such was the custom of 
Christians in Justin's time, his description of their Sun- 
day duties was essentially defective. It is not however 
at all probable he would intend to omit noticing so 
important a characteristic of the day, as the sabbatical 



110 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

observance of it, if it was in fact Sabbatically observed. 
But even were it probable lie sliould intend to omit all 
mention of it in his apology to the emperor, it would be 
impossible to imagine any sufficient cause for his re- 
maining silent on the subject in his Dialogue with Try- 
pho the Jew; and this, whether the Dialogue was real or 
imaginary, for if the latter, Justin would still, as Dr. 
Lardner has observed ' choose to write in character.' " 

" The testimony of Justin therefore proves most 
clearly two facts of great importance in the Sabbath 
controversy ; the one, that the Christians in his time 
observed the Sunday as a prayer day ; the other, that 
they did not observe it as a Sabbath day." 

The case will be more easily understood 
when it is remembered that the religious sys- 
tem of the pagans was burdened with festal 
days. Gods, Groddeses, heroes and events all 
had their commemorative times. The heathen 
converts carried a love for these into their 
Christian or semi-Christian-life. Sunday was 
a prominent day under the pagan system. 
They naturally sought some reason for its 
observance in connection with the new religion. 
The tradition concerning the resurrection on 
that day offered some ground. Philosophy 
invented the main reasons as given by Justin, 
and so the Sunday crept into the Church a 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. Ill 

semi-pagan festival, but not a Sabbath. In- 
deed the influence of the men who, like Justin, 
had adopted Christianity, but had not been 
fully converted by it, was opposed to the true 
spirit of Sabbath observance. These men 
were the fathers of that baneful no-lawism 
which cut the Church loose from God and 
drove her to an unhallowed union with the 
State. Their errors began to cast up a high- 
way on which the " man of sin " came into the 
Church. Hence it is that for a thousand years 
after the introduction of Sunday, its promi- 
nence is proportionate to the success of the 
apostatizing element in the Church. 

During the third century it gradually 
received a second title, that of Lord's day, the 
term involving hovever only the general idea 
of commemoration and not of sacredness. 

Doctor Kitto says :* 

" The earliest authentic instance in which the name 
of Lord's day is applied [to Sunday] is not till A. D. 200, 
when Tertullian speaks of it as 'die Dominico resurrex- 
ionis.' Again, 'Domiiiicum Diem' " 



^Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, art, Lord's day. 



112 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

One or two quotations from the writers of 
the third century will show the downward 
course of the new doctrine. First we have 
Tertullian. In his work entitled, " Adversus 
Judoeos"* is found the following: 

" It follows therefore, that inasmuch as the abolition 
of carnal circumcision and of the old law has been 
proved, so also the observation of the temporal Sabbath 
has been demonstrated. For the Jews say that God 
from the beginning, sanctified the Seventh day by rest- 
ing from all his works ; and that Moses said to the 
people, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, in 
it thou shalt do no servile work, but only that work 
which concerns the soul, by which we know more, 
namely : that we should always sabbatize from all 
servile work, not Only on the Seventh day alone, but 
through all time. And we must now require which 
Sabbath God wishes us to keep, for the Scriptures speak 
of an eternal, and of a temporal Sabbath. For Isaiah 
the prophet says : 1 : 14. ' Your Sabbaths my soul 
hateth ; and in another place, ' Ye have profaned my 
Sabbaths ;' from which we learn that the temporal Sab- 
bath is to be considered human, the eternal Sabbath 
divine. For this is^foretold through Isaiah 66 : 23. He 
says : ' From one moon to another, and from one Sab- 
bath to another shall all flesh come to worship before 
me saith the Lord ; ' which we understand to have been 
fulfilled in the time of Christ, when all flesh — that is 

* Liber, 4, Chapter 4. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 113 

all men — came to Jerusalem to adore God the Father 
through His Son Jesus Christ, as was foretold by the 
prophet — Isaiah 4 : 9 — ' Behold proselytes shall come to 
thee through me/ Hence as there was a spiritual 
before the carnal circumcision, there was also an eternal 
Sabbath pre-existing, and predicated before the tem- 
poral Sabbath. So they may say, as we have before 
said that Adam sabbatized ; or that Abel when he offered 
the holy sacrifice, pleased God by the observance of the 
Sabbath ; or that Enoch when he was translated, was 
an observer of the Sabbath ; or that Noah observed the 
Sabbath in building the Ark on account of the great 
deluge ; or that Abraham offered his son Isaac in the 
observance of the Sabbath; or that Melchisideck re- 
ceived the law of the Sabbath in his priesthood. But 
the Jews say that the Sabbath must be observed because 
it was commanded by Moses." 

" It is therefore clear that the precept was not eternal 
nor spiritual, but temporal, and might at some time 
cease. Hence I add that the solemnities of the Sabbath, 
that is the Seventh day, are not to be celebrated by 
idleness, as Joshua showed in the time when he destroyed 
the city of Jericho. A command was given him from 
God, that he should direct the people to carry the ark 
of the testimony around the city seven days, and when 
the seven days were ended the walls would fall of their 
own accord, and so it happened when the seven days 
were ended the walls fell. Now it is very evident that 
the Sabbath occurred on one of these days. For seven 
days wherever you begin to reckon must include the 
Sabbath ; upon which day not only the priests worked, 
but the city was taken at the edge of the sword by the 



114 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

whole people of Israel. Also in the time of Maccabes 
the people fought bravely on the Sabbath ; or in their 
attack upon Allophyles ; and they thus restored the 
law to its pristine condition. Nor do I believe that they 
have defended any law except that which they remem- 
bered to have been given concerning the Sabbath. 
Whence it is clear that precepts of this nature were 
applicable to the necessities of the time, and that God 
did not give the law to be perpetually observed." 

In another work* he saVs again : 

" The Holy Spirit reproach eth the Jews for their feast 
days. Your Sabbaths says he, and your new mOons, 
and your ordinances my soul hateth. And do we, to 
whom these Sabbaths belong not ; nor the new moons ; 
nor the feast days once beloved of God, celebrate the 
feasts of Saturn and of January, and of the winter sol- 
stice, and the feast of Matron's ? For us shall offerings 
flow in, presents jingle, sports and feasts roar? Oh 
truer fealty of the heathen to their own religion which 
taketh to itself no rite of the Christians ! No Lord's 
day ; no Pentecost ; even had they have known them, 
would they have shared with us. For they would be 
afraid lest they should be thought Christians. We are 
not afraid lest we be openly declared to be heathen I 
If thou must needs have some indulgence for the flesh 
too, thou hast it ; and thou hast not only as many days 
as they, but even more. For the heathen festival is on 
but one day in every year, thine upon every eighth day. 
Gather out the several solemn feasts of the heathen 
and set them out in order ; they will not be able to make 

* De Idol. Cap. 14. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 115 

up a Pentecost." 

Here we have the native character of the 
Sunday truly set forth. "If thou must needs 
have some indulgence to the flesh, thou hast it 
every eighth day. 11 Such was the legitimate, 
nay the unavoidable fruitage of this semi-pa- 
gan festivalism, a fruitage which poisened the 
Church as fast as it ripened. 

Doctor Hessey* ingeniously states the case 
as regards the status of the Sunday in the 
Church at the close of the third century. He 
saj^s : 

" It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but was 
carefully distinguished from it as an institution under 
the law of liberty, observed in a different way and with 
different feelings, and exempt from the severity of the 
provisions which were supposed to characterize the 
Sabbath." 

Robert Cox,f speaking of the reasons which 
the early writers give for observing Sunday 
says they were : 

" Fanciful in most cases, and ridiculous in some. The 
best of them is that on the first day the Savior had arisen 

* Lectures on Sunday, p. 49. 

f Sabbath Literature, vol. 1, p. 358. 



116 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

from the dead ; and the others chiefly are — that on the 
first day God changed darkness and matter, and made 
the world ; that on Sunday Jesus Christ appeared to, 
and instructed His disciples ; (Justin) that the command 
to circumcise children on the eighth day, was a type of 
the true circumcision, by which we were circumcised 
from error and wickedness through our Lord, who rose 
from the dead on the first day of the week, (Justin and 
Cyprian,) and that manna was first given to the Israe- 
lites on a Sunday, (Origen.) From which the inevitable 
inference is, that they neither had found in Scripture 
any commandment — primeval, Mosaic, or Christian — 
appointing the Lord's day to be honored or observed , 
nor knew from any tradition any such commandment 
delivered by Jesus or His disciples." 

Sir William Domville* says : 

" Centuries of the Christian era passed away before 
the Sunday was observed by the Christian Church as a 
Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single 
proof or indication that it was at any time so observed 
previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 
321. 

Neanderf has the following : 

" The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals was 
always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the 

* Examination of the six texts, vol. 1. p. 291. 
f History of the Christian Church and religion during 
the first three centuries, p. 186. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 117 

intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command 
in this respect ; far from them and from the early Apos- 
tolic Church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to 
Sunday." 

So far as religious culture and real worship 
are concerned, Sunday contributed less to them 
than did Friday and Wednesday, saying noth- 
ing of the Sabbath. The "fasts" were more 
religiously observed than the " feasts, and 
Sunday was the great weekly feast of the 
Church, at the close of the third century.* 

Standing at the close of the third century 
the case may be briefly summed up as follows : 

In spite of the opposition which had grown 
up, because of the false claim that the Sabbath 
was " Jewish " only ; in spite of the decline in 
true religion and godliness resulting from the 
fast growing apostacy, the Sabbath is generally 
observed by the Christian Church. In the 
west, about Rome, where No-Sabbathism pre- 
vailed more largely, it was observed by some 
as a " fast " in connection with Friday. In 



* See Bingham, Coleman, Neander and others on this 
point. 



118 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the East it retained its true character in a 
large degree. 

Sunday as a sort of festival in the Church 
is something more than a century old, and is 
" a day of indulgence for the flesh" gaining 
ground in proportion as the Church goes into 
apostacy. 



CHAPTER II. 



CONSTANTINE AND THE SaBBATH 
QuESTIO 




N 



HE fourth century opens a new era in 
the history of the Church, and of the 
Sabbath question. In the West, 
through a union of church and state 
the Papacy is born and the disastrous 
work of civil legislation concerning relig- 
ion begins. Constantine the Great is the 
representative man during the first quarter of 
the century. At the death of his father in the 
year 306, he became an associate ruler in the 
Roman Empire, and gained full power in the 
year 323. He died at Constantinople^ A. D., 
337. Constantine first began to favor Christi- 
anity as an element of social and political 
power. He shrewdly seized upon it as the only 
vigorous element in the decaying Empire. He 



120 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

neither appreciated nor loved the truth for its 
own sake. A modern historian* speaks of him 
in these words : 

" He reasoned, as Eusebius reports from his own 
mouth, in the following manner : ' My father served 
the Christians' Grod, and uniformly prospered, while 
the emperors who worshiped the heathen gods, died a 
miserable death ; therefore, that I may enjoy a happy 
life and reign, I w T ill imitate the example of my father 
and join myself to the cause of the christians, who are 
growing daily, while the heathen are diminishing. 
This low utilitarian consideration weighed heavily in the 
mind of an ambitious captain, who looked forward to 
the highest seat of power within the gift of his age." 

Dr. Schaff says again :f 

"He was distinguished by that genuine political wis- 
dom, which, putting itself at the head of the age, clearly 
saw that idolatry had outlived itself in the Roman Em- 
pire, and that Christianity alone could breathe new vigor 
into it, and furnish it moral support. ' 

" But with the political, he united also a religious mo- 
tive, not clear and deep indeed, yet honest, and strongly 
infused with the superstitious disposition to judge a re- 
ligion by its outward success, and to ascribe a magical 
virtue to signs and ceremonies. . . .Constantine first 

*Phillip Schaff— Church History, Vol 2, p. 19.— N. Y l 
1867. 

fib. Id. p. 13. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 121 

adopted Christianity as a superstition, and put it by the 
side of his heathen superstition, till, finally, in his con- 
viction, the Christian vanquished the pagan, though 
without itself developing into a pure and enlightened 
faith. At first, Constantine, like his father, in the spirit 
of the Neo-Pl atonic syncretism of dying heathendom, 
reverenced all the gods as mysterious powers ; especially 
Apollo, the god of the sun, to whom, in the year 308, he 
presented munificent gifts. Nay, so late as the year 321 „ 
he enjoined regular consultations of the soothsayers in 
public misfortunes, according to ancient heathen usage ; 
even later, he placed his new residence, Byzantium, un- 
der the protection of the god of Martyrs, and the hea- 
then goddess of Fortune ; and down to the end of his 
life, he retained the title and dignity of pontifex max- 

imus, or high priest of the heathen hierarchy 

With his every victory over his pagan rivals, Galerius, 
Maxentius, and Licinius, his personal leaning to Chris- 
tianity, and his confidence in the magic power of the 
cross increased ; yet he did not formally renounce hea- 
thenism, and did not receive baptism, until, in 337, he 

was laid upon the bed of death He was far 

from being so pure and so venerable as Eusebius, blinded 
by his favor of the Church, depicts him in his bombas- 
tic and almost dishonestly eulogistic biography, with the 
evident intention of setting him up as a model for all 
future Christian princes. It must with all regret be 
conceded, that his progress in the knowledge of Chris- 
tianity was not a progress in the practice of its virtues. 
His love of display and his prodigiality, his suspicious- 
ness and his despotism, increased with his power. The 
very brightest period of his reign is stained with gross 



122 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

crimes, which even the spirit of the age, and the policy 
of an absolute monarch, cannot excuse. After having 
reached, upon the bloody path of war, the goal of his am- 
bition, the sole possession of the Empire ; yea, in the 
very year in which he summoned the great council of 
Nicsea, he ordered the execution of his conquered rival 
and brother-in-law, Licinius, in breach of a solemn prom- 
ise of mercy, (324.) Not satisfied with this, he caused, 
soon afterward, on political suspicion, the death of the 
voting Licinius, his nephew, a boy of hardly eleven 
years. But the worst of all is the murder of his eldest 
son, Crispus, in 326, who had incurred suspicion of poli- 
tical conspiracy, and of adulterous aud incestuous pur- 
poses toward his step-mother, Fausta, but is generally 
regarded as innocent." 

" At all events, Christianity did not produce in Con- 
stantine a thorough moral transformation. He was con- 
cerned more to advance the outward social position of 
the Christian religion, than to further its inward mission. 
He was praised and censured in turn by the Christians 
and Pagans, the Orthodox and the Arians, as they suc- 
cessively experienced his favor or dislike. * * * 
■" When, at last, on his death-bed he submitted to bap- 
tism, with the remark, ' Now let us cast away all dupli- 
city, he honestly admitted the conflict of two antagonis- 
tic principles which swayed his private character and 
public life." 

Knowing thus tlie character and antecedents 
of the man, the reader is better prepared to 
judge concerning the motives which led to the 
passage of his " Sunday Edict/' the first act of 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 123 

legislation which directly affected the Sabbath 
question. The edict runs as follows :* 

Omnes Judices urbanseque plebes, et cunctarum arti- 
um officia venerabili die Solis quiescant. Ruri tanien 
positi Agrorum culturae liber licenterque inserviant : 
quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die fru- 
menta sulcis, aut vinea? scrobibus mandentur, ne occas- 
sione momenti pereat commoditus coelesti provision e 
concessa." 

" Let all judges, and all city people, and all 
tradesmen, rest upon the venerable day of the 
Sun, But let those dwelling in the country 
freely and with fall liberty attend to the cul- 
ture of their fields ; since it frequently hap- 
pens, that no other day is so fit for the sowing 
of grain, or the planting of vines; hence the 
favorable time should not be allowed to pass, 
lest the provisions of heaven be lost." 

This was issued on the seventh of March, 
A. D., 321. In June of the same year it was 
modified so as to allow the manumission of 
slaves on the Sunday. The reader will notice 
that this edict makes no reference to the 
day as a Sabbath, as the Lord's day, or as in 

*Cod. Justin. III. Tit. 12, L. 3. 



124 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

any way connected with Christianity. Neither 
is it an edict addressed to Christians. JSTor is 
the idea of any moral obligation or Christian 
duty found in it. It is merely the edict of a 
heathen emperor, addressed to all his subjects, 
Christian and heathen, who dwelt in cities, and 
were tradesmen, or officers of justice, to refrain 
from their business on the " venerable day" of 
the god whom he most adored, and to whom 
he loved in his pride to be compared. There 
are three distinct lines of argument which 
prove that this edict was a pagan, rather than 
a Christian document. 

1. The language used. It speaks of the day 
only as the " venerable day of the Sun" & title 
purely heathen. It does not even hint at any 
connection between the day and Christianity, 
or the practices of Christians. 

2. Similar laws concerning many other hea- 
then festivals were common. Joseph Bing- 
ham* bears the following testimony, when 
speaking of the edict under consideration. 

* Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book 20, Chap. 
2, sec. 2. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 125 

" This was the same respect as the old Roman laws 
had paid to their ferim, or festivals, in times of idolatry 
and superstition. * * * Now, as the old Roman 
laws exempted the festivals of the heathen from all ju- 
dicial business, and suspended all processes and plead- 
ings, except in the fore-mentioned cases, so Constantine 
ordered that the same respect should be paid to the 
Lord's day, that it should be a day of perfect vacation 
from all prosecutions, and pleadings, and business of 
the law, except where any case of great necessity or 
charity required a juridicial process and public tran- 
saction." 

Bingham states here clearly the fact, that 
such prohibitions were made by the Eoman 
laws in favor of their festivals, but adds, incor- 
rectly, that Constantine made the same in fa- 
vor of the Lord's day ; for we have seen that 
it was not the Lord's day, but the " venerable 
day of the Sun" which the edict mentions ; and 
it is impossible to suppose that a law, made by 
a Christian prince, just converted from heathen- 
ism, in favor of a Christian institution, should 
not in any way mention that institution, or 
hint that the law was designed to apply to it. 

Mill man* corroborates this idea as follows : 

^History of Christianity, Book 3, Chap. 1. 



126 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" The earlier laws of Constantine, though in their ef- 
fect favorable to Christianity, claimed some deference, 
as it were, to the ancient religion, in the ambiguity of 
their language, and the cautious terms in which they 
interfered with Paganism. The rescript commanding 
the celebration of the Christian Sabbath, bears no allu- 
sion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. 
It is the day of the sun which is to be observed by the 
general veneration ; the courts were to be closed, and the 
noise and tumult of public business and legal litigation 
were no longer to violate the repose of the sacred day. 
But the believer in the new Paganism, of which the so- 
lar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce 
without scruple, in the sanctity of the first day of the 
week." 

In chapter fourth of the same book, Millman 

says : 

" The rescript, indeed, for the religious observance of 
the Sunday, which enjoined the suspension of all public 
business and private labor, except that of agriculture, 
was enacted, according to the apparent terms of the de- 
cree, for the whole Roman Empire. Yet, unless we had 
direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian rea- 
son for the sanctity of the day, it may be doubted 
whether the act would not be received by the greater 
part of the empire as merely adding one more festival 
to the fasti of the empire ; as proceeding from entirely 
the will of the emperor, or even grounded on his author- 
ity as supreme pontiff, by which he had the plenary 
power of appointing holy days. In fact, as we have be- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 127 

fore observed, the day of the Sun would be willingly 
hallowed by almost all the Pagan world, especially that 
part which had admitted any tendency toward the ori- 
ental theology." 

Stronger still is the testimony of an English 
Barrister, Edward V. Neale* These are his 
words : 

" That the division of days into juridici, et feriati, ju- 
dicial and non-judicial, did not arise out of the 
modes of thought peculiar to the Christian world 
must be known to every classical scholar. Before the 
age of Augustus, the number of days upon which, out 
of reverence to the gods to whom they were consecrated, 
no trials could take place at Rome, had become a re- 
source upon which a wealthy criminal could speculate 
as a means of evading justice; and Suetonius enumer- 
ates among the praiseworthy acts of that emperor, the 
cutting off from the number, thirty days, in order that 
crime might not go unpunished nor business be im- 
peded. " 

After enumerating certain kinds of business 
which were allowed under these general laws, 
Mr. Neale adds, " Such was the state of the 
laws with respect to judicial proceedings, while 
the empire was still heathen." Concerning 
the suspension of labor, we learn from the 

* Feasts and Fasts, p. 6. 



128 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

same author*' 

" The practice of abstaining from various sorts of la- 
bor upon days consecrated by religious observance, like 
that of suspending at such seasons, judicial proceedings 
was familiar to the Roman world before the introduc- 
tion of Christian ideas. Virgil enumerates the rural la- 
bors, which might on festal days be carried on, without 
-entrenching upon the prohibitions of religion and right ; 
.and the enumeration shows that many works were con- 
sidered as forbidden. Thus it appears that it was per- 
mitted to clean out the channels of an old water course ; 
but not to make a new one ; to wash the herd or 'flock, 
if such washing was needful for their health, but not 
otherwise ; to guard the crop from injury by setting 
snares for birds, or fencing in the grain ; and to burn un- 
productive thorns." 

These facts show how the heathen training^ 
and belief of -Constantine gave birth to the 
u Sunday edict." That he was a heathen is 
also attested by the fact that the edict of the 
7th of March, 321, in favor of Sunday, was 
followed by another, published the next day, 
which is so purely heathen, that no doubt can 
be entertained as to the character of the man 
who was the author of both edicts. f The edict 

*Ib. p. 88, et. Seq. 

f See Rosse's Ind. of Dates, p. 380, Gibbon's Decline 
iind Fall of the Roman Empire, &c. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 120 

of March 8th, commanded that in case of pub- 
lic calamity, like the striking of the imperial 
palace or public buildings by lightning, the 
heathen ceremonies for propitiating the Gods 
were to be performed, and the meaning of the 
calamity should be sought from theharuspices. 
The haruspices were soothsayers, who gave 
their answers from watching the movements 
of the entrails of slain beasts, and the smoke 
from burning certain portions. This was a 
proceeding purely heathen, and no Christian 
prince could have made such a law. There is 
an evident connection between the two edicts, 
as we shall see when we remember that Apollo, 
who was honored as the god of the Sun, 
was the patron deity of these soothsayers. He 
was also the patron deity of Constantine, and 
the one to whom he, in his pride, loved to be 
compared. Thus the Sunday edict, from its 
associations as well as its language, is shown to 
be the emanation of a heathen, and not a Chris- 
tian religion. Eemember, too, that at least 
nine years later than this, Constantine placed 
his new residence at Byzantium under the pro- 



130 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

tection of the heathen goddess of Fortune 
that he never gave up the title of high-priest 
of the heathen hierarchy ; that he did not for- 
mally embrace Christianity, and submit to bap- 
tism until he lay upon his death-bed, sixteen 
years later ; and you cannot fail to see that 
whatever he did to favor Christianity, and 
whatever claims he made to conversion, were 
the outgrowth of a shrewd policy, rather than 
of a converted heart. And when the impar- 
tial historian can say of him, " The very bright- 
est period of his reign is stained with crimes, 
which even the spirit of the age, and the pol- 
icy of an absolute monarch, cannot excuse,"* 
we cannot well claim him as a Christian 
prince. 

If he made any general laws against heathen- 
ism, they were never executed ; for it was not 
suppressed in the empire until A. D. 390-seventy 
nine years after his Sunday edict, and fifty 
three years after his death, f The few abuses 

*Schaff. 

fSee vol. 3, chap. 28, Decline and Fall of Roman Em- 
pire. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 131 

against which he enacted laws, were those 
which had been condemed before by the laws 
of the heathen rulers who had preceeded him, 
such as the obscene midnight orgies, &c. 
Mill man* speaks as follows on this point : 

"If it be difficult to determine the extent to which 
Constantine proceeded in the establishment of Christi- 
anity, it is even more perplexing to estimate how far he 
exerted the imperial authority in the abolition of pa- 
ganism. * * * The pagan writers, who are not scru- 
pulous in their charges against the memory of Constan- 
tine, and dwell with bitter resentment on all his overt 
acts of hostility to the ancient religion, do not accuse 
him of these direct encroachments on paganism. Nei- 
ther Julian nor Zosimus lay this to his charge. Libanius 
distinctly asserts that the temples were left open and un- 
disturbed during his reign, and that paganism remained 
unchanged. * . * • * Though Constantine advanced 
many Christians to offices of trust, and no doubt many 
who were ambitious of such offices conformed to the re- 
ligion of the emperor, probably most of the high digni- 
ties of the state were held by the pagans. * * In the 
capitol there can be but little doubt that sacrifices were 
offered in the name of the senate and the people of 
Rome, till a much later period." 

The whole matter is tersely told by a late 
English writer, who, speaking of the time of 
the Sunday edict, says : 

*Book 4, Chap. 4. 



132 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" At a later period, carried away by the current of 
opinion, he declared himself a convert to the Church. 
Christianity then, or what he was pleased to call by 
that name, became the law of the land, and the edict of 
A.D. 321, being- unrevoked, was enforced as a Christian or- 
dinance."* 

The following words of the learned Niebuhr, 
in his lectures on Roman history, as quoted by 
Stanley, f are to the same effect. 

" Many judge of Constantine by too severe a standard, 
because they regard him as a Christian ; but I cannot 
look at him in that light. The religion which he had 
in his head, must have been a strange jumble indeed. 
# * * He was a superstitious man, and mixed up his 
Christian religion with all kinds of absurd and supersti- 
tious opinions. When certain oriental writers call him 
equal to the apostles, they do not know what they are 
saying ; and to speak of him as a saint is a profanation 
of the word." 

The testimony concerning Constantine and 
the Sunday edict, is given at some length in 
order to show that Sunday gained its promi- 
nence in the Eoman Empire through civil legis- 
lation, and also that the legislation was not 
Christian but pagan. By this adulterous union 

*Sunday and the Mosaic Sabbath, p. 4. 
fHistory of the Eastern Church, p. 292. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 133 

between heathenism and Christianity, the Pa- 
pacy was produced, and the Sunday became 
one of its petted itstitutions. It is not neces- 
sary to trace its history along the succeeding 
centuries, under the pall of the i: dark ages," 
through to the Reformation. It is all expres- 
sed in one word : downward. The time and 
the manner of its observance were regulated by 
the Church in common with her other festivals m 
Sometimes it was the day merely ; sometimes 
the sacred time extended from noon on the sev- 
enth dajf, until sunrise on the second day of the 
week. But true to its origin and nature, it was 
always the child of him, who spoke swelling 
words against the most High and sought to 
" change times and laws." On the other hand 
the history of the Sabbath runs through this 
dark period like a thread of light, showing 
how Grod cares for His truth and guards it 
when false theories and open enemies seek to 
destroy it. Let us follow the golden thread 
though the truth-crushing reign of Anti-Christ. 




CHAPTER III. 

Sabbath-Keeping Dissenters 
in the Western Church 

NTI-CHRIST, as represented in the 
Papacy, never succeeded in driving 
the Sabbath wholly from his domains. 
Dissenters who kept the Sabbath, 
existed under different names and forms of or- 
ganization, from the time of the first pope to 
the Reformation. They were either the de- 
scendants of those who fled from the heathen 
persecutions previous to the time of Constan- 
tine — which is most probable — or else those 
who, when he began to rule the Church, and 
force false practices upon it, refused submission 
and sought seclusion, and freedom to obey God, 
in the wilderness in and around the Alps. In 
their earlier history, they were known as Naz- 
arenes, Cerinthians, and Hypsistarii ; and later, 
as Vaudois, Cathari, Toulousians, Albigenses, 



136 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Petrobrusians, Passagii and Waldenses. We 
shall speak of them in general, under this lat- 
ter name. They believed the Eomish Church 
to be the " Anti-Christ" spoken of in the New 
Testament. Their doctrines were compara- 
tively pure and scriptural, and their lives were 
holy, in contrast with the ecclesiastical corrup- 
tion which surrounded them. The reigning 
Church hated, and followed them with its per- 
secutions. In consequence of this unscrupu- 
lous opposition, it is difficult to learn all the 
facts concerning them, since the only available 
accounts come to us through the hands of their 
enemies, garbled and distorted. Before the age 
of printing, their books were few, and from 
time to time these were destroyed by their per- 
secutors, so that we have only fragments from 
their own writers. At the beginning of the 
twelfth century they had grown in strength and 
numbers to such an extent as to call forth ear- 
nest opposition and bloody persecution from 
the Papal power. This and the increasing fa- 
cilities for preserving history, have given them 
a prominent place in the annals of the Church, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 137 

and its reforms since that time. Their enemies 
have made many unreasonable and false 
charges concerning their doctrines and prac- 
tices, but all agree that they rejected the doc- 
trine of " church authority," and appealed to 
the Bible as their only rule of faith and prac- 
tice. They condemned the usurpations, the 
innovations, the pomp and formality, the world- 
liness and immorality of the Romish hier- 
archy. If their close adherence to God's Word 
sometimes led them to adopt extreme views, 
it is not wonderful. Even their bitter ene- 
mies have not denied that which all accord to 
them, viz. : moral excellence and holiness of 
life far in advance of their times and surround- 
ings. 

There are three lines of argument which 
show that these dissenters, as a class, were Sab- 
bath-keepers. 

1. Apriori argument, founded upon the fol- 
lowing statements which are confirmed by the 
subsequent quotations. They accepted the 
Bible as their only standard. They were very 
familiar with the Old Testament, and held it 



138 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

in great esteem. They acknowledged no cus- 
tom or doctrine as binding upon Christians 
which was not established before the ascension 
of Christ. Such a people must have rejected 
those feasts which the Church had appointed, 
and must have observed the Sabbath. But 
there is direct testimony showing their anti- 
quity, their high moral character and piety, 
and their special character as Sabbath-keepers. 
It is pertinent to preface these quotations with 
the following from the pen of Mr. Benedict,* 
by which it will be seen that it is almost a 
miracle that any information concerning them 
has come down to this time. 

"As scarcely any fragment of their history remains, 
all we know of them is from the accounts of their ene- 
mies, which were always uttered in a style of censure 
and complaint ; and without which we shonld not 
have known that millions of them ever existed. It was 
the settled policy of Rome to obliterate every vestige of 
opposition to their decrees and doctrines, everything 
heretical, whether persons or writings, by which the faith- 
ful would be liable to be contaminated and led astray. 
In conformity to this their fixed determination, all books 
and records of their opposers were hunted up and com- 

* History of the Baptists, p. 50. . . 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 139 

mitted to the flames. Before the art of printing was 
discovered in the fifteenth century, all books were made 
with a pen ; the copies, of course, were so few that their 
concealment was much more difficult than it would be 
now, and if a few of them escaped the vigilance of the 
inquisitors, they would be soon worn out and gone. 
None of them could be admitted and preserved in the 
public libraries of the Catholics, from the ravages of 
time, and the hordes of barbarians with which all parts 
of Europe were at different times overwhelmed." 



Again Mr. Benedict speaks as follows: 



* 



" We have already observed from Claudius Seyssel, 
the popish archbishop, that one Leo was charged with 
originating the Waldensian heresy in the valleys, in 
the days of Constantine the Great. When those severe 
measures emanated from the Emperor Honorius against 
re-baptisers, the Baptists left the seat of opulence and 
power, and sought retreats in the country, and in the val- 
leys of Piedmont ; which last placa in particular, became 
their retreat from imperial oppression." 

Dean Waddington bears testimony as fol- 
lows :f 

" Rainer Sacho, a Dominican, says of the Waldenses : 
' There is no sect so dangerous as the Leonists, for three 
reasons : first, it is the most ancient, some say it is as 
old as Sylvester,;): others, as the apostles themselves. 

*Ib. p. 23. 

f Church History, chap. 22, sec. 1. 

^Bishop of Rome under Constantine. 



140 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Secondly, it is very generally disseminated ; there is no 
country where it has not gained some footing. Third 
while other sects are profane and blasphemous, this re- 
tains the utmost show of piety ; they live j ustly before 
men, and believe nothing concerning God which is not 
good.' " 

This game writer, Sacho, admits that they 
flourished at least five hundred years before 
the time of Peter Waldo* Their great anti- 
quity is also allowed by Gretzer, a Jesuit, who 
wrote against them. Crantz 1 in his " History 
of the United Brethren,"f speaks of this class 
of Christians in the following words : 

" These ancient Christians date their origin from the 
beginning of the fourth century, when one Leo, at the 
great revolution in religion under Constantine the Great, 
opposed the innovations of Sylvester, Bishop of Rome. 
Nay. Rieger goes further still, taking them for the re- 
mains of the people of the vallies, who, when the Apostle 
Paul, as is said, made a journey over the Alps into 
Spain, were converted to Christ." 

Jortin bears the following testimony 4 

" In the seventh century Christianity was preached in 
China by the Nestorians and the Valdenses who abhor 

^Benedict, Bap. Hist. p.p. 21-22. 
*Latrobe's translation, p. 16 — London, 1780. 
fEcc. Hist. vol. 2, sec. 38. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 141 

red the papal usurpations, are supposed to have settled 
themselves in the valleys of the Piedmont."^ 

President Edwards says : 

" Some of the popish writers themselves own that 
that people never submitted to the Church of Rome. 
One of the popish writers speaking of the Wal- 
denses, says : the heresy of the Waldenses is the old- 
est in the world. It is supposed that this people first 
betook themselves to this desert, secret place among the 
mountains to hide themselves from the severity of the 
heathen persecutions, which were before Constantine the 
Great, and thus the woman fled into the wilderness 
from the face of the serpent, Rev. 12:6-14. And the 
people being settled there, their posterity continued 
there from age to age afterward ; and being, as it were, 
by natural walls as well as God's grace, separated 
from the rest of the world, never partook of the over- 
flowing corruption." *■*.*«< Theodore Belvedere, 
a popish monk, says that the heresy had always been in 
the valleys. In the preface to the French Bible the 
translators say that they (the Valdenses) have always 
had the full enjoyment of the heavenly truth contained 
in the holy Scriptures ever since they were enriched 
with the same by the apostles, having preserved, in fair 
mss. the entire Bible in their native tongue from gener- 
ation to generation." 

Thus history furnishes full and explicit tes- 
timony concerning the antiquity of these pure 

^History of Redemption, p. 293, 294. 



142 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Christians, showing that their separation be- 
gan very early, and that they never submitted 
to the papal power, nor accepted its false teach- 
ings. Their numbers is a matter of no less in- 
terest than their antiquity. Jones bears the 
following testimony:* 

" Even in the twelfth century their numbers abound- 
ed in the neighborhood of Cologne in Flanders, the south 
of France, Savoy, and Milan. They were increased, 
says Egbert, to great multitudes throughout all countries , 
and although they seem not to have attracted attention 
in any remarkable degree previous to this period, yet, 
as it is obvious they could not have sprung up in a day, it 
is not an unfair inference that they must have long ex- 
isted as a people wholly distinct from the Catholic 
Church, though, amidst the political squabbles of the 
clergy, it was their good fortune to be entirely over- 
looked." * * * " Towards the middle of the twelfth 
century, a small society of the Puritans, as they were 
called by some, or Waldenses as they are termed by 
others, or Paulicians, as they are denominated by our 
old monkish historian, William of Newburg, made their 
appearance in England. This latter writer speaking of 
them, says : ' They came originally from Gascoyne, 
where, being as numerous as the sand of the sea, they 
sorely infested France, Italy, Spain and England." 

^History of the Waldenses, vol. 1, chap. 4, sec, 3 — 
London, 1816. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 143 

Benedict says ;* 

" In the thirteenth century, from the accounts of 
Catholic historians, all of whom speak of the Waldenses 
in terms of complaint and reproach, they had founded 
individual Churches, or were spread out in colonies in 
Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Bohemia, Po- 
land, Lithuania, Albania, Lombardy, Milan, Romagna 
Vicenza, Florence, Velepenetine, Constantinople, Phila- 
delphia, Sclavonia, Bulgaria, Diognitia, Livonia, Sarma- 
tia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Briton and Piedmont." 

It is not claimed that there was perfect agree- 
ment in sentiment on all points among all these 
different sects, in all the different localities. 
That they agreed on the fundamental point of re- 
jecting the Romish Hierarchy, and appealing 
to the Bible as the only standard of faith and 
practice, is undeniable. The following testi- 
monies will show what they were in these re- 
pects. Allix speaks as follows :f 

" They can say a great part of the Old and New Testa- 
ment by heart. They despise the decretals, and the say 
ings and expositions of holy men, and only cleave to the 

^History of the Baptists, p. 31. 

fEcc. Hist, of the Ancient Piedmont Church, p.p. 216 
217, 209— London, 1690. 



144 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

-text Scripture/' * * * " They say that the doctrine of 
Christ and His apostles is sufficient to salvation, with- 
out any Church statutes and ordinances. That the tra- 
ditions of the Church are no better than the traditions 
of the Pharisees ; and that greater stress is laid on the 
observation of human traditions than on the keeping of 
the law of God. — ' Why do you transgress the law of 
God by your traditions/ They contemn all approved ec- 
clesiastical customs which they do not read of in the 
Gospel, as the observation of Candlemas, Palm Sun- 
day, the reconciliation of penitents, the adoration 
of the cross on Good Friday. They despise the 
feast of Easter and all other festivals of Christ and 
the Saints, because of their being multiplied to that 
vast number, and say that one day is as good as 
another, and work upon holy days, where they can do 
it without being taken notice of/' *.*•*.■« They 
declare themselves to be the apostles' successors, to have 
Apostolic authority, and the keys of binding and loosing. 
They hold the Church of Rome to be the Whore of Baby- 
lon, and that all who obey her are damned, especially 
the clergy that are subject to her since the time of Pope 
Sylvester." * * * " They hold that none of the ordi- 
nances of the Church that have been introduced since 
Christ's ascension ought to be observed, being of no 
worth ; the feasts, fasts, orders, blessings, offices of the 
•Church and the like, they utterly reject." 

This is said of them in Bohemia. (As late 
as the time of Erasmus these Bohemians con- 
tinued to keep the Sabbath with Great strict- 
ness.) 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 145 

In his history of the Waldenses,* Jones 
gives their " confession of faith," article tenth 
of which is as follows : 

" Moreover, we have ever regarded all the inventions of 
men (in affairs of religion) as an unspeakable abomina- 
tion before God ; such as the festival days and vigils of 
the saints, and what is called holy water, the abstaining 
from flesh on certain days, and such like things, but 
ajpove all, the Masses." 

Iii section four of the same chapter, Jones 
quotes from Book first, chapter five, of Perrin's 
History of the Yaudois, as follows : 

" Their heresy excepted, they generally live a purer 
life than the Christians. They never swear but by com- 
pulsion, and rarely take the name of God in vain. They 
fulfill their promises with punctuality, and living for 
the most part in poverty, they profess to preserve the 
apostolic life and doctrine. They also profess it to be 
their desire to overcome only by the simplicity of faith , 
by purity of conscience, and integrity of life ; not by 
philosophical niceties, and theological subtleties." And 
he very candidly admits that — " In their lives and mor- 
als they are perfect, irreprehensible, and without 
reproach among men, addicting themselves with all their 
might to observe the commandments of God. Lielen- 
stenius a Dominition, speaking of the Waldenses of Bo- 
hemia, savs : ' I sav that in morals and life thev are £*ood, 



& 



Chap. 5, sec. 3. 



V 



146 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

true in words, unanimous in brotherly love, but tlieir 
faith is incorrigible and vile,as I have shown in 
my Treatise." * * * " Louis XII, King of France 
being informed by the enemies of the Waldenses, 
inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that 
several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent 
the Master of Requests, and a certain doctor ot the Sor- 
bonne, who was confessor to his majesty, to make in- 
quiry into this matter. On their return, they reported 
that they had visited all the parishes where they dwelt, 
had inspected their places of worship, but that they had 
found there no images, nor signs of ornaments belong- 
ing to the Mass, nor any of the ceremonies of the Eom_ 
ish Church ; much less could they discover any traces of 
the crimes with which they were charged. On the con- 
trary, they kept the Sabbath day, observed the ordinance 
of baptism, according to the Primitive Church, and in 
structed their children in the articles of Christian faith, 
and the commandments of God." 

Eccolampadius, Luther, Beza, Bullinger, De 
Vignaux, Chassagnon, Milton, and others 
among modern writers unite in bearing testi- 
mony to their uprightness and faithful adher- 
ence to the Word of God. Their observance 
of the Sabbath is also further attested as fol- 
lows : Jones says :* 

*IIist. Waldenses, chap. 5, sec. ,1. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 147 

" Because they would not observe saint's days, they 
were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also, and 
called Inzabbatati, or Insabbathists." 

Bennedict has the following ;* 

" We find that the Waldenses were sometimes called 
Insabbathos, that is regardless of Sabbaths. Mr. Milner 
supposes this name was given to them because they 
observed not the Eomish festivals, and rested 
from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A 
Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met 
for worship on the seventh day, and did not regard the 
first day Sabbath." 

Not only must a "Sabbatarian " thus con- 
clude, but every thinking man must agree ; 
since no fact is better established than this, viz; 
that the Sunday was understood to be purely 
a Church festival, one of the very things which, 
they rejected. Blair's history of the Walden- 
ses gives the following :f 

" Among the documents we have by the same peoples 
is an explanation of the ten Commandments, dated by 
Boyer, 1120. It contains a compendium of Christian 
morality. Supreme love to God is enforced, and re- 
course to the influence of the planets and to sorcerers 

*Hist. Baptists, vol. 2, p. 412.— Ed. 1831. 
fVol. 1, p.p. 216, 220.— Edinburg, 1833. 



14b SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

is condemned. The evil of worshiping God by images 
and idols is pointed out. A solemn oath to confirm any- 
thing doubtful is admitted, but profane swearing is for- 
bidden. Observation of the Sabbath, by ceasing from 
worldly labors and from sin, by good works, and by 
promoting the edification of the soul through prayer 
and hearing the word is enjoined. Whatever is preached 
without scripture proof, is accounted no better than 
fables." 

From a historical work of the early part of 
the seventeenth century, entitled " Purchase's 
Pilgrimages,"* a sort of universal history, we 
learn that the Waldenses, in different localities, 

" Keep Saturday holy, nor esteem Saturday fasts law- 
ful. But on Easter, even, they have solemn services on 
Saturdays, eat flesh, and feast it bravely, like the Jews." 

During the twelfth century, they were known 
in some parts of France and Italy as Passagin- 
ians. Of these, Mosheim has the following :f 

" Like the other sects already mentioned, they had the 
utmost aversion, to the dominion and discipline of the 
Church of Rome ; but they were, at the same time, dis 
tinguished by two religious tenets which were peculiar 
to themselves. The first was a notion that the obser- 
vation of the law of Moses, in everything except the offer- 

*vol. 2, p. 1269.— London, 1625. 

fEccl. Hist, vol, 2, p. 127.— London, 1810. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 149 

ing of sacrifices, was obligatory upon Christians, in con- 
sequence of which, they circumcised their followers, ab- 
stained from those meats, the use of which was prohib- 
ited under the Mosaic economy, and celebrated the Jew- 
ish Sabbath/' 

The charge of circumcision is made only by 
their enemies, the Romanists, and is not well 
sustained ; but if it were true, they were not 
Jews, but, as even their enemies admit, most 
blameless and worthy Christians. Concern- 

c/ 

ing this charge, Benedict says : 

" The account of their practicing circumcision is un 
doubtedly a slanderous story, forged by their enemies, 
and probably arose in this way : Because they observed 
the Seventh day, they were called, by way of derision, 
Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this day ; 
and if they were Jews, they either did, or ought to cir. 
cumcise their followers. This was probably the reason- 
ing of their enemies. But that they actually practiced 
the bloody rite, is altogether improbable."^ 

Another direct and important testimony is 
found in a ' l Treatise on the Sabbath, "f by 
Bishop White. Speaking of Sabbath-keep- 
ing as opposed to the practice of the Church 
and heretical, he says ; 

♦Hist. Baptists, vol. 2, p.p. 412-418.— Ed. 1813. 
fp. 8.— London, 1635. 



150 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" It was tlius condemned in the Nazarenes and in the 
Cerinthians, in the Ebionites and in the Hypsistarii. 
The ancient Synod of Laodicea made a decree against 
it, chap. 29 ; also, Gregory the Great affirmed it was Ju- 
daical. In St. Bernard's days, it was condemned in the 
Petrobrussians. The same likewise being revived in 
Luther's time, by Carlstadt, Sterneberg, and by some sec- 
taries among the Anabaptists, hath both then, and ever 
since, been condemned as Jewish and heretical." 

The various and slanderous charges of cor- 
ruption and religious excesses which certain 
Romish writers have made against the Wal 
denses, are truthfully and fairly disposed of 
by Mr. "W. S. Gully, in a work entitled " Val- 
denscs, &c* 

" We may therefore consider that all the licentious 
tales which have been told at the expense of Valdo and 
his disciples, were the inventions of after times. That 
individuals among them may have broached some ex_ 
travagant and fanatical dogmas, is not improbable, but 
we have no contemporary evidence in proof of their hav- 
ing departed from the strictest rules of moral and relig- 
ious purity, or of their having been guilty of any other 
than the unpardonable offence of disobeying a spirit- 
ual authority which had become as tyranical in the 
exercise of its powers as it was remiss in the discharge of 
the sacred trusts committed to it. ' The worst thing 

*p. 57. — Edinburg edition. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 151 

that can be said of them/ said the inquisitor Reiner, 
whose business it was to accuse and hunt them down, 
* is that they detest the Romish Church.' " 

Other testimony might be added, but the 
case does not demand it. It is already clear 
that when the great apostacy began, which 
culminated in the establishment of the Papacy, 
and the union of Church and State, there were 
those who refused to join with the apostate 
throng, or recognize its unsciptural doctrines. 
That they rejected the false dogma of Church 
infallibility, and adhered to the Bible, Old and 
New Testaments, as the only Christian author- 
ity, and rule of Christian living. As a result 
of this, their lives were holier and purer than 
those of the apostate Church. Being removed 
from the central arena of ecclesiastical and civil 
strife, they increased in strength and numbers 
until they came to be feared by their enemies, 
when they were eagerly hunted, relentlessly 
condemned, and slaughtered without mercy. 
In common with the other truths of the Bible 
they obeyed the law of the Fourth command- 
ment, and kept God's Sabbath. Their history 



152 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

forms a strong link in the unbroken chain of 
Sabbath -keepers which unites the years when 
the "Lord of the Sabbath " walked upon the 
earth, with these years in which He is mar- 
shalling His forces for its final vindication. 



CHAPTER IV. 



EEPING IN THE 




Sabbath K 

Eastern Church. 

AVINGr thus traced the history of 
the Sabbath through the wilderness 
of No-Sabbafhism in the Western 
Church, it is berlting to inquire after 
the history of the Sabbath in the Eastern 
Church. Modern research has developed 
some important facts concerning that part of 
the Church which has never been subject to 
the civil control of the Papacy; facts which 
show that the Sabbath has retained its place 
in the Church wherever the " civil power " has 
not driven it out. Eirst comes 

THE ABYSSYNIAN CHURCH. 

The following extract from the pen of Rev. 
Samuel Gobat,"* is a befitting preface to what 

* Journal of three years residence in Abysssinia, p 
55. N. Y. 1850. 



154 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

may be said concerning this branch of the 
Church. 

" It is generally admitted that Christianity was first 
introduced into Abyssinia about the year of our Lord 
330, at the time when Athanasius was patriarch of Alex, 
.andria in Egypt. * * * It is from this date that the 
Abyssinian Church assumes importance in the annals of 
ecclesiastical history. Through all succeeding ages, 
from that period to the present, she has received her 
.superior ecclesiastic, or Abulia (literally our Father,) by 
the appointment of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and 
has continued with little interruption to maintain an 
intimate connection with the Coptic Church of Egypt. " 
•h- * * « During the seventh century when the 
Mohammedans of Arabia spurred on by their religious 
enthusiasm made an irruption into Egypt, and nearly 
crushed the Church then existing in that country, the 
strong ties which had hitherto bound together the Eas. 
tern and Western Churches were almost entirely sun- 
dered ; and the Abyssinian Church suddenly becoming 
obscured, retired for several ages from the pages of 
history. But ere she passed behind the cloud, she 
encountered a fearful struggle with the Arabians, a 
circumstance which evinced the reality of her vital 
energies. The Arabians were a crafty foe ; skillful in 
device, and unscrupulous as to means, they employed 
alike strategem and force to induce her to submit to 
their sway, and to adopt the new religion. But, stead- 
last in her religious principles, the Abyssinian Church 
xemained unshaken as a rock amid the dashing billows. 
Covering her with his shield, God preserved her from 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 155 

the galling yoke of Mohammedan tyrany, and permitted 
her to keep feebly burning the flame of Christian faith 
which she had received as a rich inheritance from her 
fathers." 

From the seventh century to the opening of 
the sixteenth century, the Church of Abys- 
sinia was almost entirely shut out from the 
Church of Europe. During the seventeenth cen- 
tury repeated and violent attempts were 
made by the Jesuits, under the patronage of 
Portugal to convert or subdue it. Artful in- 
trigue and bloody war were alike unsuccessful, 
and the Jesuits were finally driven from the 
field. Touching the Sabbath as an. issue in 
this straggle, Gobat speaks as follows:* 

" The flame of discord might easily have been extin- 
guished by the death of the Viceroy and that of the 
Almna, had not the Emperor, regarding his late success 
as a decisive victory, issued a decree, forbidding the 
people longer to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath, which, 
from time immemorial, they had been accustomed to 
hallow with the same strictness and solemnity as the 
Lord's day." 

Against this decree made by the Emperor 
under the promptings of the Pope's emissaries, 

* Journal &c. p. 83. 



156 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the people protested with voice and sword, 
and the war raged anew. Mr. Gobat decribes 
it in the following words :* 

" Tliis unhappy war continued to rage with unabated 
fury, trembling in the balance between alternate suc- 
cesses and reverses until the Emperor felt the imperious 
necessity, in consideration of the interest of his throne, 
and the tranquillity of his subjects, of requesting the 
patriarch to negotiate a treaty between the Pope and 
his royal highness, in which it should be stipulated, that 
the Abyssinian Church might retain their ancient lit- 
urgy, celebrate the same festival days that they formerly 
observed, and enjoy the privilege of hallowing not less 
the Jewish Sabbath than the Lord's day, in agreement 
with tneir uniform practice previous to the introduction 
of the Catholic faith." 

But this was not enough. The people 
" claimed nothing less than the entire re-estab- 
lishment of the ancient constitution of their 
Church, and the total expulsion of the stran- 
gers from the kingdom." The Emperor was 
too much under the control of the Jesuit 
emissaries to grant this at once. Another 
bloody battle took place between his own 
troops and his insurgent people. Though 

* Journal &c. p. 93. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 157 

temporarily victorious in this encounter, lie 
finally yielded. 

" An imperial lierald was accordingly sent through the 
streets of the Capitol, proclaiming, ' Hear ' ! ' Hear ' ! I 
formerly recommended to your acceptance the Catholic 
faith, because I believed it to be true ; but as great num- 
bers of my subjects have sacrificed their lives in defence 
of the religion of our fathers, I hereby certify that the 
free exercise of this religion shall be hereafter guaran- 
teed to all. Your priests are hereby authorized to take 
possession of their Churches, and worship without mo- 
lestation the God of their ancestors." 

" It is impossible, adequately to describe the demon- 
stration of joy, evinced by the gushing tears of gratitude 
which accompanied this public declaration. Voices 
echoing the praises of the Emperor floated on every 
breeze ; the people threw from their houses the rosaries 
and chaplets of the Jesuits and burnt them in bonfires ; 
satisfaction and delight were expressed in every coun- 
tenance, gladness sparkled in every eye."* 

Such strength of character and tenacity of 
purpose have ever marked this branch of the 
Church. Incidental remarks scattered through 
the work of Mr. Grobat, show that the Abys- 
sinian Church still keeps the Sabbath. Turn- 
ing to other authority the reader will learn 
that : 

* lb. Id. p. 97. 



158 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" The Abyssinians do liold tlie Scriptures to be the 
perfect rule of Christian faith ; insomuch that they 
deny it to be in the power of a general council to oblige 
the people to believe anything as articles of faith with- 
out an express warrant from them."* 

" Tran-substantiation and the adoration of the conse- 
crated bread in the sacrament, were what the Abyssin. 
ians abhored. They deny purgatory, and know nothing 
of extreme unction ; they condemn graven images ; they 
keep both Saturday and Sunday. "f 

This author, Greddes, gives a detailed account 
of their doctrines and practices as by given 
one Zaga Zabo, the ambassador, of the king 
of Ethiopia, at Lisbon, Spain, in 1534, as fol- 
lows :J 

" We are bound by the Institutions of the Apostles 
to observe two days, to wit : the Sabbath, and the Lord's 
day, on which it is not lawful for us to do any work, no, 
not the least. On the Sabbath day because God, after he 
had finished the creation of the World, rested thereon ; 
which day, as God would have it called the Holy of Ho- 
lies, so the not celebrating thereof with great honor and 
devotion, seems to be plainly contrary to God's will and 
precept who will suffer heaven and earth to pass away 
sooner than His word ; and that especially, since Christ 

* Church History of Ethiopia, by Michael Geddes, p. 
31, London, 1696. 
f lb. Id. p. 34, 35. 
J Church History of Ethiopia. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 1CD 

came not to dissolve the law, but to fulfill it. It is not 
therefore in imitation of the Jews, but in obedience to 
Christ and His holy Apostles, that we observe that day, 
the favor that was showed herein to the Jews, being 
transferred to us, Christians ; so that excepting Lent, 
we eat flesh every Saturday in the year. But in the 
kingdoms of Barnagaus, Tigre and Mahon, the Chris- 
tians according to ancient custom do eat flesh on all 
Saturdays and Sundays, even in Lent. We do observe 
the Lord's day after the manner of all other Christians- 
in memory of Christ's resurrection." 

More intelligent, scriptural, and truly Chris- 
tian views of the Sabbath, could scarcely be 
given. Nor is there in all the account any 
hint of authority for the Sunday, beyond tra- 
dition. The "History of the Eastern Church, 7 
by Arthur P. Stanley informs the reader that : 

" The Church of Abyssinia, founded in the fourth 
century by the Church of Alexandria, furnishes the one 
example of a nation, savage, yet Christian, showing us, 
on the one hand, the force of the Christian faith in 
maintaining its superiority at all against such immense 
disadvantages, and, on the other hand, the utmost 
amount of superstition with which a Christian Church 
can be overlaid without perishing altogether. One 
lengthened communication it has hitherto received 
from the West — the mission of the Jesuits. With this 
exception, it has been left almost entirely to itself. 
Whatever there is of Jewish, or of old Egyptian ritual 



100 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

preserved in .the Coptic Church, is carried to excess in 
the Abyssinian. The likeness of the sacred ark, called 
the ark of Zion, is the centre of Abyssinian devotion. 
To it gifts and prayers are offered. On it the sanctity 
of the whole Church depends. Circumcision is not only 
practiced, as in the Coptic Church, but is regarded as of 
equal necessity with baptism. There alone the Jewish 
Sabbath is still observed as well as the Christian Sun- 
day. They (with the exception of a small sect of the 
Seventh-day Baptists) are the only true Sabbatarians in 
Christendom. "* 

Thus has the Abyssinian Church stood firm 
on the fundamental truth of God's Word, and 
clung to His Sabbath through all the vicissi- 
tudes and cruel opposition of fifteen hundred 
years ; as Christians too, and not as Judaizers, 
their own words being witness. It is not won - 
derful if they are to-day below the higher 
Christian standards of practical religious life ; 
it is rather wonderful that they have not been 
wholly corrupted and overrun. When we re- 
member the fierce attacts of Mohammedanism ; 
the craft and cruelties of Eomanism, and the 
continued encroachments of surrounding Pa- 
ganism, their present purity in doctrines and 

* p. 96, N. Y. 1862. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 161 

in life seems almost miraculous. Grobat testi- 
fies that though, he had " sometimes overheard 
conversation of a very improper and indeed de- 
basing character," nevertheless he had "never 
witnessed so much lewdness or indecency of 
conduct in the Capitol of Abyssinia, as is 
sometimes witnessed in the Capitols of Egypt, 
France, or England."* 

The time is not distant when this branch of 
the Church will spring to new life and become 
under God instrumental in converting the 
nations around it to Him, and to His Sab- 
bath. 

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

Here is another example similar to the one 
just presented. According to Stanley, this 
Church was founded A. D. 302. It was the 
central Christian influence in Asia, and during 
its early history pushed its missionary enter- 
prises even to China. In the fifth century a 
translation of the Bible was made into the 
Armenian tongue, which is so perfect as to 

* Journal &c. p. 459. 



162 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

have been called the "queen of versions.' 7 
Their general character at the present time is 
described by Mr. Stanley as follows :* 

" The Armenians are by far the most powerful, and 
the most widely diffused, in the group of purely Orien- 
tal Churches, of which we are now speaking, and as 
such exercise a general influence over all of them. Their 
home is in the mountain tract that encircles Ararat. 
But, though distinct from the surrounding nations, they 
are yet scattered far and wide through the whole Levant, 
extending their episcopate, and carrying on at the same 
time the chief trade of Asia. A race, a church, of mer- 
chant princes, they are in quietness, in wealth, in steadi- 
ness, the ' Quakers ' of the East, the ' Jews,' if one may 
so call them, of the Oriental Church." 

Rev. Lyman Coleman speaks of the observ- 
ance of the Sabbath among the Armenians in 
the following casual manner: 

" There are at least fourteen great feast-days in the 
coarse of the year, on which all ordinary labor is sus- 
pended, and the day is observed more strictly than the 
Sabbath."t 

J. W. Mossie,^: as quoted by Andrews, § thus 
describes them : 

* Hist. Eastern Church, p. 92. 

f Ancient Christianity exemplified, p. p. 561, 562 — 
Phila. 1852. 

J Continental India, vol. 2, p. p. 116, 117, 120. 
§ Sab. Hist, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 163 

•' The creed which these representatives of an ancient 
line of Christians cherished was not in conformity with 
Papal decrees, and has with difficulty heen squared 
with the thirty-nine articles of the Anglican Episco- 
pacy. Separated from the World for one thousand 
years, they were naturally ignorant of many novelties 
introduced by the councils and decrees of the Lateran ; 
and their conformity with the faith and practices of the 
first ages, laid them open to the unpardonable guilt of 
heresy and schism, as estimated by the Church of Rome. 
*We are Christians, and not idolators,' was their expres- 
sive reply, when required to do homage to the image of 
the Virgin Mary." * * * " La Croze states them 
at fifteen hundred Churches, and as many towns and 
villages. They refused to recognize the pope, and de- 
clared they had never heard of him ; they asserted the 
purity and primitive truth of their faith, since they 
came, and their bishops had for thirteen hundred years 
been sent from the place where the followers of Jesus 
were first called Christians." * * " Remote from the 
busy haunts of commerce, or the populous seats of 
manufacturing industry, they may be regarded as the 
Eastern Piedmontes, the Vallois of Hindoostan, the 
witnesses prophecying in sack cloth through revolving 
centuries though indeed their bodies lay as dead in the 
streets of the city they had once peopled." 

Yeates informs us that Saturday " amongst 
them is a festival day agreeable to the ancient 
practice of the Church, "f 

f East India Church history, p. 134 — quoted by An- 
drews, Sab. Hist, p. 314. 



164 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

But the following testimony from the pen 
of Eev. Claudius Buchannan* presents the 
case still more clearly. He says : 

" Next to the Jews, the Armenians will form the most 
generally useful body of Christian Missionaries. They 
are found in every principle city of Asia ; they are the 
general merchants of the East, and are in a state of con- 
stant motion from Canton to Constantinople. Their 
general character is that of a wealthy, industrious, and 
enterprising people. They are settled in all the princi- 
pal places of India, where they arrived many centuries 
before the English. Wherever they colonize, they build 
Churches, and observe the solemnities of the Christian 
Religion in a decorous manner." * * * " The his- 
tory of the Armenian Church is very interesting. Of 
all the Christians in Central Asia, they have preserved 
themselves most free from Mahomedan and Papal cor- 
ruptions. The Pope assailed them for a time with great 
violence, but with little effect. The Churches in lesser 
Armenia indeed consented to a union, which did not 
long continue ; but those in Persian Armenia maintained 
their independence, and they retain their ancient Scrip- 
tures, doctrines, and worship to this day. * * The 
Bible was translated into the Armenian language in the 
fifth century, under very auspicious circumstances, the 
history of which has come down to us. It has been 
allowed, by competent judges of the language, to be a 
most faithful translation. La Croze calls it the ' Queen 
of Versions.' This Bible has ever remained in the pos- 

* Researches in Asia, p. 206. seq — Boston, 1811. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 165 

session of the Armenian people, and many illustrious 
instances of genuine and enlightened piety occur in 
their history. * * * The Armenians in Hindoostan 
are our own subjects. They acknowledge our govern- 
ment in India, as they do that of Sophi in Persia, and 
they are entitled to our regard. They have preserved 
the Bible in its purity, and their doctrines are, as far as 
the author knows, the doctrines of the Bible. Besides, 
they maintain the solemn obssrvance of Christian wor- 
ship throughout our empire on the seventh day ; and 
they have as many spires pointing to heaven among the 
Hindoos as ourselves. Are such a people then entitled 
to no acknowledgement on our part, as fellow Chris- 
tians ? Are they forever to be ranked by us with Jews, 
Mohammedans, and Hindoos?"* 

NESTORIAN OR CHALDEAN CHRISTIANS. 

Stanley states that : 

The Chaldean Christians, called by their opponents, 
Nestorians, are the most remote of these old 'Separatists/ 
Only the first two councils, those of Nicaea and Constan- 
tinople, have weight with them. The third — of Eplie- 

* The above is from a Boston edition of 1811. It will 
not be found in some, if any, of the later editions, from 
which it has been expunged, i e. the passage relative to 
their observance of the Sabbath. A similar instance of 
corrupting the text of history is found in a late edition 
of " Grant's History of the Nestorians," in which the 
word " Christian " is often thrown in before " Sabbath," 
thus leading the reader to suppose that Sunday is ob- 
served by the Nestorians, instead of the Sabbath. 



166 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

sus — already presents the stumbling block of the decree 
which condemned Nestorius. Living in the fastnesses 
of Kurdistan, they represent the persecuted remnant of 
the ancient Church of Central Asia. They trace their 
descent from the earliest of all Christian missions — the 
mission of Thaddaeus to Abgarus. * * * In their 
earlier days they sent forth missions on a scale exceed- 
ing those of any western Church, except the See of 
Rome in the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and for the 
time redeeming the Eastern Church from the usual 
reproach of its negligence in propagating the Grospel. 
Their chief assumed the splendid title of Patriarch of 
Babylon, and their Missionaries traversed the whole of 
Asia, as far eastward as China, and as far southward as 
Ceylon.* 

Coleman speaks of their Sabbath-keeping 
doctrines and practices as follows, quoting 
from their authorities : 

" These eight festivals of our Lord we observe, and 
we have many holy days and the Sabbath day, on which 
we do not labor. * * * The Sabbath day we reckon 
far — far above the others." * . * * The worship of 
the Sabbath does not differ materially from that of other 
days, except that an extra service for preaching the 
Gospel is now extensively introduced under the influence 
of the Missionaries." * * * " Incense is burned in 
the Churches of the Nestorians on the Sabbath and on 
feast-days. "f 

* Hist. Eastern Church, p. 91. 

f Ancient Christianity exemplified, p. 573. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 167 

Doctor Hessey quotes from Grant's History 
of the Nestor ians, as follows :* 

" The Sabbath, he says is regarded with a sacredness 
among the mountain tribes, which I have seen among 
no other Christians in the East. I have repeatedly been 
told by Nestorians of the plain that their brethren in 
the mountains would immediately kill a man for travel 
ing or laboring on the Sabbath ; and there is abundant 
reason to believe that this was formerly done, though 
it has ceased since the people have become acquainted 
with the practice of Christendom on this subject. 
While in the mountains, I made repeated inquiries con- 
cerning the observance of that remarkable statute of 
the Jews, which required that ' whosoever doeth any 
work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to 
death'; and I was everywhere told that this statute had 
formerly been literally executed. Nor does there appear 
to be any motive for deception, since the practice is now 
disapproved by all. There are said to be Nestorians 
now in Tiyary who will not kindle a fire on the Sabbath 
to cook their food ; but their cold winters oblige them 
to do it for necessary warmth. "f 

* Lectures on Sunday, p. 309. 

fMr. Hessey evidently consulted a corrupted edition 
of Grant's History, for he says that he " gathers from 
the language " that this Sabbath was observed on Sun- 
day instead of Saturday. The word " Christian " which 
is thrown before the word Sabbath in the later editions 
of Grant's work, would thus mislead. But when we 
remember that no such use of the term Sabbath was 
known in the early Church, when all authorities agree 
that the term was always applied to the Seventh day, 
and to that only, until the rise of Puritanism, the cor- 
ruptness of the text is at once apparent. Such corrup- 
tions are too common in modern Sabbath literature. 



168 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Thus it is ■ evident that these branches of 
the Church which have never been subject to 
the " man of sin " who has u changed times 
and laws,"' have never ceased to observe the 
Sabbath. It is also shown by their own words 
that they do this as a Christian duty, after 
the example of Him who was '• Lord of the 
Sabbath." These branches of the Church 
continue to do according to the words of 
Athanasius, when he said : " We meet upon 
the Sabbath, not because we are affected with 
Judaism, but to worship Christ, the Lord of 
the Sabbath," for they were colonized about 
the time he wrote those words. Thus is another 
link added to the chain of proof in favor of 
the observance of the Sabbath as a Christian 
institution, by the early Church. 

There are distinct traces of Sabbath-keeping 
Christians in the north of Europe — within the 
bounds of the Greek Church, but we have not 
yet been able to collate the references in such 
a manner as to introduce them here. 



CHAPTER V. 




S a bbath- Observance Tn 

Europe Since the 

Reformation. 

HE history of the Sabbath during the 
early years of the Reformation is ne- 
cessarily meager. The descendants of 
the Waldenses in Bohemia, Holland, 
and other parts of Northern Europe, seem 
to have formed the material for Sabbath - 
keeping Churches which came to light 
when the rays of Reformation began to 
illumine the long-continued night of Papal 
apostacy. These Sabbath-keepers were Bap- 
tists, and hence were classed with the despised 
ik Anabaptists," who were made still more odi- 
ous by the fanaticism of a few at Munster 
during the early part of the sixteenth century. 
Most writers have therefore passed over the 
history of these years by saying of Sabbath 



170 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

observance, that it was " revived by some 
sectaries among the Anabaptists;" or words to 
this effect. When Sabbath-keepers were per- 
sons of prominence, more definite notice is ta- 
ken of them. Enough can be gathered, how- 
ever, to show that Sabbath-keepers were not 
uncommon on the continent of Europe, from 
the opening of the sixteenth century forward. 
An old German historian, John Sleidan, speak- 
ing of a sect in Bohemia called " Picards," 
savs :* 

" Tliey admit of nothing but the Bible. They choose 
their own priests and bishops ; deny no man marriage, 
perform no offices for the dead, and have but very few 
holy days and ceremonies." 

These are the same people to whom Eras- 
mus refers, representing them as extremely 
strict in observing the Sabbath. Robert Cox 
in his " Sabbath Literature, "f quotes from Eras- 
mus and comments as follows : 

u With reference to the origin of this sect, (Seventh- 
day Baptists,) I find a passage in Erasmus, that at the 
early period of the Reformation when he wrote, there 

*Hi story of the Reformation, &c. p. 53. — London, 1689. 
fVol. 2, p.p. 201, 202. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 171 

were Sabbatarians in Bohemia, who not only kept the 
seventh day, but were said to be so scrupulous in rest. 
ing on it, that if anything went into their eyes they 
would not remove it till the morrow. He says : ' Nunc 
audimus apud Bohemos exoriri novum Judaeorum genus 
Sabbatarios appellant, qui tanta superstitione servant 
Sabbatum, ut si quid eo die incident in oculum, nolint 
eximere ; quasi no sufficiat eis pro Sabbato Dies Do- 
minicus qui Apostolis etiam erat sacer, aut quasi Chris- 
tus no satis expresserit quantum tribuendum sit Sab- 
bati/ "* 

" Hospinian of Zurich in his treatise De F'estis Juda- 
orum et Ethnicorwm Cap. iii, (Tiguri. — 1592,) replies to 
the arguments of these Sabbatarians." 

The story concerning their extreme strictness 
on the Sabbath is doubtless a forgery. But 
inasmuch as they accepted the Bible as their 
only guide, it is not wonderful that they re- 
fused to place the " Dies Dominicus before the 
Sabbath," since the Bible giyes no authority 
for such a course. Doctor Hesseyf refers to 
these same Sabbatarians as the origin of the 
present Seventh-day Baptists. A voluminous 
work by Alexander Ross, speaking of these 

*De Amabili Ecclesiae Concordia, Op. torn. V. p. 506; 
Lugd. Bat, 1704." 

f Lectures on Sunday, p. 374. — Note. 



172 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

people at the beginning of the Reformation, 
says :* 

" Some only will observe the Lord's Day ; some only the 
Sabbath ; some both, and some neither." 

Bishop White, speaking of Sabbath observ- 
ance bears this testimony :f 

" The same likewise being revived in Luther's time 
by Carlstadius and Sternebergius, and by some sectaries 
among the Anabaptists, hath both then and ever since, 
been censured as Jewish and Heretical." 

Eoss,J above quoted, bears concurrent tes- 
timony to the Sabbatarianism of Sterneberg. 
Carlstadt it will be remembered was an inti- 
mate friend of Luther, between whom and him- 
self a separation was initiated because of Oarl- 
stadt's extreme radicalism in his plans of Ref- 
ormation. 

Mr. Gilfillan§ quotes a writer of the year 
1585, one John Stoekwood, who states that in 
those times there were u manifold disputations 

*A View of All Religions in the World,&c, p. 237.— 
London, 1658, 

•(•Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 8. 
^View of All Religions, p. 235. 
^Sabbath, p. 60. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 173 

among the learned/' and " a great diversity 
of opinion among the vulgar people, and sim- 
ple sort, concerning the Sabbath day, and the 
right use of the same, some maintaining the 
changed and unchangeable obligations of the 
Seventh-day Sabbath, &c. v 

Chambers' Cyclopedia refers to the Bohe- 
mian Sabbath -keepers, and others as follows :* 

" Accordingly, in the reign of Elizabeth, it occurred 
to many conscientious and independent thinkers, (as it 
had previously done to some protestants in Bohemia,) 
that the Fourth Commandment required of them, the 
observance, not of the first, but of the specified Seventh 
day of the week, and a strict bodily rest, as a service 
then due to God. They became numerous enough to 
make a considerable figure for more than a century in 
England, under the title of ' Sabbatarians ' — a word now 
exchanged for the less ambiguous appellation of ' Sev- 
enth-day Baptists.' * * * They have nearly disappeared 
in England, though in the seventeenth century so nu- 
merous and active as to have called forth replies from 
Bishop White, Warner, Baxter, Bunyan, Wallis, and 
others." 

Thus it is seen that there were Protestantf 
Sabbath -keeping Baptists in Bohemia, Holland 
and England, as early as the beginning of the 

-Article, Sabbath, vol. 8.— London, 1866. 



174 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

sixteenth century. This link unites the past 
with the present, and gives an unbroken chain 
of Sabbath-keepers from the days of Christ, 
the Lord of the Sabbath, to the present hour. 
The Church has never been without witnesses 
for the truth concerning Grod's Holy day. 

The completer development and organization 
of the Seventh-clay Baptists in England, is ea- 
sily traced. In these pages this will be done 
first, by noting the authors and martyrs, among 
them whose names appear in history, and sec- 
ond by giving a brief history of their organized 
Churches. 

Among the first who taught the truth rela- 
tive to the Sabbath, and suffered for it, was 
John Trask-spelled also Trasque, and Thraske. 
— Ephraim Paggitt, in his " Church Herisiog- 
raphy," devotes more than fifty pages to the 
history of Trask, his wife, and his followers. 
From this it appears that he first began to ob- 
serve the Sunday accordmg to the law of the 
Fourth Commandment. One of his comrades, 
Lackson, (Hessey says Jackson,) carrying the 
question on to its legitimate results, taught 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 175 

that the day mentioned in the law must be ob- 
served. Trask accepted this and many more 
with him. Paggitt mentions William Hillyard, 
Christopher Sands, Mrs. Mary Chester, who 
was afterwards imprisoned, Key. Mr. Wright, 
and his wife. He also mentions in the same 
connection, " One Mr. Hebden, a prisoner in 
the new prison, that lay there for holding Sat- 
urday Sabbath." Mrs. Chester was kept in 
prison for some time, but was finally released 
on her apparent conversion to the Church. 
But her tendency to the truth w T as too strong, 
and " twelve months after she was set at lib- 
erty, she relapsed into her former errors." 
Paggitt charges Trask and his followers with 
Judaical opinions concerning Christ, but the 
charge seems to have grown out of the fact 
that they observed the Sabbath, and no " offi- 
cial " charge of this kind is made against them 
on their trials. 

Mrs. Trask, before her imprisonment kept a 
private school for children, having one assist- 
ant teacher who was also a Sabbath-keeper. 
Attention was drawn to her Sabbatarian prin- 



176 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

ciples, from the fact that she would not teach 
upon the Sabbath, and on trial she was con- 
demned to imprisonment* Concerning that 
imprisonment Paggitt speaks as follows :f 

" His wife, Mistress Trask, lay for fifteen or sixteen 
years a prisoner for her opinions about the Saturday- 
Sabbath ; in all which time she would receive no relief 
from anybody, notwithstanding she wanted much, al- 
ledging that it is written, ' it's a more blessed thing to 
give than to receive.' Neither would she borrow. She 
deemed it a dishonor to her head, Christ, either to beg 
or borrow. Her diet for the most part of her imprison 
ment, that is till a little before her death, was bread and 
water, roots and herbs. No flesh, nor wine, nor brewed 
-drink. * * * She charged the keeper of the prison 
not to bury her in Church or Church-yard, but in the 
fields only ; which accordingly was so done. So there 
was an end to her sect in less than half a generation. 
'Tis true it begins of late to be revived again ; but yet 
faintly. The progress it makes is not observed to be 
much ; so that of all gangrenes of Spirit, with which the 
times are troubled, as yet it spreads little ; and therefore 
it is hoped a short Caveat (such as this is) may suffice 
against it.":f 

Trask was brought before the infamous 
u Star Chamber " in 1618, and tried upon the 

*See Paggitt, p. 209. 
fp. 196. 

JThis was written in 1661, forty years after the trial 
of Trask, and about the time of Brabourne. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 177 

following charges, which appear in the speech 
of Bishop Andrews against him.* The Bishop 
states that his fault consisted in trying to make 
u Christian men the people of God, His Maj- 
esty's subjects, little better than Jews. This 
he doth in two points, and when he takes it in 
his head, he may do it in two and two, and 

two more." * * * These are the specifi- 
cation s : 

1. " One is, Christians are bound to abstain from those 
meats which the Jews were forbidden in Leviticus. 

2. " The other, that they are bound to observe the Jew- 
ish Sabbath." 

Bishop Andrews labors in a lengthy speech 
to prove both these positions heretical. T here 
is no argument of importance adduced in the 
speech. It does however contain that some- 
what noted passage, " Dominicum Servasti" 
Ac, which leaves no shadow of doubt that 
he was the author of it, and shows also that 
he gives no authority for it. This trial resulted 
in the following sentence, which was executed 
upon Trask : 

*See Paggitt, p. 199. 



178 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" Set upon the Pillory in Westminister, and from 
thence to be whipped to the fleet, there to remain prisoner." 

He afterwards made a recantation and was 

released, whereupon he wrote a book in 1620, 

as evidence of his conversion, entitled, 

" A Treatise of Liberty from Judaism, or ax 
Acknowledgment of True Christian Liberty. 
Indited and Published by John Trask, of late 
Stumbling, now Happily Running in the Race of 
Christianity."* 

Thus did the hand of persecution suppress 
the first prominent development of Sabbath 
truth in England. The suppression was, how- 
ever, neither complete nor of long duration. 
Eight years later Theophtlus Brabourne, 
of Norfolk published his first book, entitled 

A Discourse on the SABBATH-DAY ; Wherein are 
handled these particulars ensuing : 1. That the Lord's- 
Day is not Sabbath-day by Divine institution. 2. An 
exposition of the 4th Commandment, so far forth as may 
give light unto the ensuing Discourse ; and particularly 
here it is shown at what time the Sabbath Day should be~~ 
gin and end, for the satisfaction of those who are doubtful 
on this point. 3. That the Seventh day is not abolished. 
4. That the Seventh-day Sabbath is now still in force. 5. 
The author s exhortion and reasons, that nevertheless, 

*See Heylyn Hist. Sab., part 2, chap. 8, sec. 10 ; Cox 
Sabbath Literature, vol. 1, p. 153, &c. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 179 

there be no Rent from our Church as touching practice. 
—1682, 18mo, p.p, 238/'* 

Cox says : 

" Brabourne is a much abler writer than Trask, and 
may be regarded as tlie founder in England of the sect 
fi rst known as Sabbatarians, but now calling themselves 
Seventh-day Baptists. * * * Towards the conclu- 
sion of the treatise, he thus appeals to the prudence of 
his readers : ' And now let me propound to your choice 
these two days : the Sabbath-day on Saturday, or the 
Lord's Day on Sunday ; and keep whether of the twain 
you shall in conscience find more safe. If you keep the 
Lord's Day, but profane the Sabbath-day, you walk in 
great danger and peril (to say the least) of transgressing 
one of God's eternal and inviolable laws, the Fourth 
Commandment ; but on the other side, if you keep the 
Sabbath-day, though you profane the Lord's Day, you 
are out of all gunshot and danger, for so you transgress 
no law at all, since Christ nor His Apostles did ever 
leave any law for itVf 

Two years later Brabourne issued a more 
exhaustive work, the first edition of which was 
published in 1630, and the second in 1632. 
A copy of the first edition is before us, want- 
ing only the title page, which we copy from 

*Cox Sab. Lit. vol. 1, p. 157. 
flb.p. 220. 



180 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Cox's notice of the second edition. It is as 
follows :* 

" A defence of the most ancient and sacred Ordinance 
of God's, the Sabbath Day. * * * Undertaken against 
all Anti-Sabbatarians, both of Protestants, Papists, Av- 
timonians, and Anabaptists ; and by name and especially 
against these ten Ministers : M. Greenwood, M. Hutchin- 
son, M. Furnace, M. Benton, M. Gall<*rd, M. Yates, M. 
Chappel, M. Stinnet, M. Johnson, and 31. Warded 

We have not space, nor is it necessary to 
quote from the book to show the strength and 
soundness of the work, and its necessary influ- 
ence on the public mind. Through this book 
the name of Brabourne has become insepa- 
rably connected with the true Sabbatarianism 
of those times. The character and influence 
of the work is also shown in the fact that 
Bishop Francis White, by order of the King, 
prepared ari answer to it, entitled " A Treatise 
on the Sabbath Day, Containing a Defence of the 
Orthodoxal Doctrine of the Church of England, 
against Sabbatarian Novelty.' 1 — London, 1685. 
In his dedication to Archbishop Laud, White 
speaks of Brabourne as follows : 

*Sabbath Literature, vol. 1, p. 162. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 181 

" A certain Minister of JSforthfolk, where I myself of 
late years was Bishop, published a Tractate of the 
Sabbath ; and, proceeding after the rule of Presbyterian 
principles, among which, this was principal : That all 
religious observations and actions, and among the rest, 
the ordaining and keeping of Holy Days, must have a 
special warrant and commandment in Holy Scripture, 
otherwise the same is superstitious ; concluded from 
thence, by necessary inference, that the seventh day of 
every week, to wit, Saturday, having an express com- 
mand in the Decalogue, by a precept simply and perpet- 
ually moral , (as the Sabbatarians teach) and the Sunday 
or Lord's Day being not commanded, either in the Law 
or in the Gospel ' the Saturday must be the Christians- 
weekly Sabbath, and the Sunday ought to be the working 
day'." 

" Now because his Treatise of the Sabbath was dedi- 
cated to his Royal Majesty, and the principles upon 
which he grounded all his arguments, (being commonly 
preached, printed, and believed, throughout the king- 
dom,) might have poisoned and infected many people, 
either with this Sabbatarian error, or with some other 
of like quality ; it was the King, our gracious Master, 
his will and pleasure, that a treatise should be set forth 
to prevent future mischief, and to settle his good sub- 
jects, (who have long time been distracted about Sabba- 
tarian questions) in the old and good way of the ancient 
and Orthodoxal Catholic Church." 

Bishop White was well qualified to write, 
and produced a work which., except the u His- 
tory of the Sabbath" by Peter Heylyn, was 



182 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

stronger than any of the books put forth by 
the churchmen of those times. Brabourne was 
summoned before the " High Commission, 
whose well tempered severity herein so pre- 
vailed upon him, that, submitting himself to a 
private conference, and perceiving the unsound- 
ness of his principles, he became a convert, 
conforming himself quietly to the Church of 
England. "* 

This u quiet conformity to the Church of 
England," on the part of Brabourne was evi- 
dently only a temporary wavering, for he 
" wrote afterwards, and a composition of his 
against Cawdrey which came out in 1654, 
gives no evidence of the sincerity of his retrac- 
tion, "f 

It is evident that he was for the moment 
overborne, rather than permanently changed, 
since his " preface" contained a candid and 
calm discussion of the causes which impelled 

*See Fuller's Church History, Book 10, century XVII, 
section 32; also, Brook's Lives of Puritans, vol. 1, p. 
362, and White, p. 305. 

fliessey Lectures on Sunday, p.p. 373-4, note 47D. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 188 

him to write and of the consequences which 
might follow. On this very point he says : 

" Tlie soundness and clearness of this my cause, givetli 
me good hope that God will enlighten them (the magis- 
trates) with it, and so incline their hearts unto mercy. 
But if not, since I verily believe and know it to be a 
truth, and my duty not to smother it, and suffer it to die 
with me, I have adventured to publish it and defend it, 
saying with Queen Esther, ' If I perish, I perish ;' and 
with the Apostle Paul ; ' neither is my life dear unto 
me, so that I may fulfill my course with joy.' What a 
corrosive would it prove to my conscience, on my 
death-bed, to call to mind how I knew these things full 
well, but would not reveal them. How could I say 
with Saint Paul, that I had revealed the whole counsel 
of God, had kept nothing back which was profitable ? 
What hope could I then conceive that God would open 
His gate of Mercy to me, who, while I lived, would not 
open my mouth for him."* 

This " Introduction," comprising an address 
to the king, to the prelates, and to the reader, 
is far from being the language of a mere 
enthusiast. If his strength failed and his 
bewildered judgment wavered for a moment 
under the pressure which was brought to 
bear upon him, it is not wonderful, nor more 

*The " Introduction " is not paged. This passage is 
from his address to the reader. 



184 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

than many good and true men have done 
under similar circumstances. There is still 
further evidence that he " soon relapsed into 
his former errors," for Mr. Cox* notices 
another book from his pen in reply to two 
books against the Sabbath, one by Ives and 
the other by Warner. This last work by 
Brabourne was an 8mo book, published at 
London in 1659. It thus appears that he 
published four books in favor of the Sabbath. 
Next upon the list stands the name of James 
Ockford, a follower of Brabourne, who issued 
a work in 1612, entitled u The Doctrine of the 
Fourth Commandment" Something concern- 
ing its character and history may be gleaned 
from a work in favor of Sunday by Cawdrey 
and Palmer, published in 1652. In part Third, 
section thirty-three, is found the following :f 

" But before we conclude this chapter, we shall take 
a brief survey of what a later Sabbatarian hath written , 
being it seems, unsatisfied (as well he might) with all 
that hath been said by the Bishop,;): and others in his 

*Sabbath Literature, vol. 2, p. 6. 

fp. 446. 

^Referring to Bishop White's answer to Brabourne. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 185 

way, in answer to the Sabbatarian arguments. One Jam es 
Ockford (as we hinted above) hath revived the quarrel,, 
and makes use of his adversaries' weapons to beat them- 
selves withal. There hath been a sharp confutation of 
his book by fire, it being commanded to be burnt, as 
perhaps it well deserved. Yet least he should complain 
of harsh dealing, no answer being given him, for his 
satisfaction, though all his arguments are already con- 
futed in this present discourse, we shall give him a brief 
account of our judgment concerning his whole book :: 
we think to a full satisfaction." 

Gawdrey and Palmer were members of the 
" Assembly of Divines/' and wrote from the 
Puritan stand point. Their review of Ockford's 
book, and the book itself, show that his argu- 
ments were well sustained. About ten years 
later, Edward Fisher published a book in favor 
of the Sabbath, entitled "A Christian Caveat,'' 
&c. This work passed through at least live 
editions. Cox speaks of it* as u A pithy, clever 
treatise directed against the opinions held by 
the Puritans, of whom he affirms that, because 
they are neither able to produce direct Scrip- 
ture nor solid reason for what they say, they 
labor to support their conceits by fallacies, fal- 

*Sabbath Literature, vol. 1, p. 237. 



186 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

sities, and wresting of God's Holy Word, as 
upon sea nning, their proofs will_ be manifest 
to the meanest capacity." 

The name of Edward Slennet stands next 
upon the list ; his first work in favor of the 
Sabbath was entitled, 

" THE ROYAL LAW CONTENDED FOR ; OR, 
Some brief Grounds serving to prove that the Ten Com- 
mandments are yet in full force, and shall so remain till 
Heaven and Earth pass away,dkc." 

By a Lover of Peace with Truth, Edward Stennet. 
"" They that forsake the Law praise the wicked, but such 

as keep the Law contend with them." Prov. 28 : 4. 
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, Fear 

God and keep His Commandments, for this is the 

whole duty of man." Ecc. 12 : 13. 
■" The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the 

Sabbath ; therefore the Son of man is Lord even of 

the Sabbath." Mark 2 : 27, 28. 
" Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all 

Thy Commandments." Ps. 119 : 6. 
London, 1658. 

This work has been republished by the 
American Sabbath Tract Society, from the 
preface to whose edition we extract the follow- 
ing notice concerning the author : 

i " The friends of the Sabbath will doubtless receive this 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 187 

little volume as a valuable relic of the past — as a word 
from one of the tried and faithful friends of the truth, 
one who not only loved the day of God's weekly rest, but 
greatly delighted in the promise of a future and glo- 
rious Sabbatism with the people of God. Edward Sten- 
net, the author, was the first of a series of Sabbatarian 
minister of that name, who for four generations contin- 
ued to be among the foremost of the Dissenters in Eng- 
land, and whose praise is still in all the Churches. He 
was an able and devoted minister, but dissenting from 
the Established Church, he was deprived of the means 
of support ; and, his family being large, he applied him- 
self to the study of medicine, by the practice of which 
he was enabled to give his sons a liberal education. He 
suffered much of the persecution ivhich the Dissenters 
were exposed to at that time, and more especially for 
his faithful adherence to the cause of the Sabbath. For 
this truth, he experienced tribulation, not only from 
those in power, by whom he was kept a long time in 
prison, but also much distress from unfriendly dissent- 
ing brethren, who strove to destroy his influence, and 
ruin his cause. He wrote several treatises upon the 
cause of the Sabbath besides this, but they are very rare, 
and perhaps cannot be found in a perfect state of preser- 
vation It would be well, no doubt, to revive all of them, 
and, if practicable, republish them in the same form as 
this, that they might be bound together, and placed as 
they deserve to be, in every Sabbath-keeper's library. 
They all breathe the genuine spirit of Christianity, and 
in their day were greatly conducive to the prosperity 
of the Sabbath-keeping Churches. 

Another work from his pen, entitled " The 



188 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord" and pub- 
lished in 1664, is before us. It is an able re- 
ply to a book by one Mr. Eussel, entitled u No 
Seventh-day Sabbath Recommended by Jesus 
ChrisC 

Next conies a book by William Sellers, pub- 
lished in 1671, the title of which runs as fol- 
lows : 

" An examination of the late book published by Doctor 
Owen, concerning a Sacred Day of Best. Many Truths 
Therein, as to the morality of a Christian Sabbath, as- 
sented to. With a Brief Inquiry into his Beasons for the 
Change of it from the Seventh day to the first, by way of 
denial. As also the consent of Doctor Heylyn find others, 
touching the time and manner of the change. With an 
Inquiry into the nature of the assertions about the first 
and second covenant." 

Next in order is the name of an author whose 
works were prominently associated with the 
history of the Seventh-day Baptists in England 
during the last half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, Francis Bampfield. He wrote at least 
two works upon the Sabbath, besides others 
of a scientific and literary character. The first 
work on the Sabbath is entitled, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 189 

" The Judgment of Mr. Francis Bampfield, late 

Minister of Sherbourne in Dorsetshire, for the Observa- 
tion of the Jewish or Seventh-day Sabbath ; with the Rea- 
sons and Scripture for the same. Sent in a letter to Mr. 
Dorchester. Together with Mr. Ben's sober Answer to the 
Same, and a Vindication of the Christian Sabbath against 
the Jewish. Published for the Satisfaction of divers friends 
in the West of England. London, 1672, 12mo,p.p. 86. 

His second work bears the following title : 

k '2(i/33aTiK7] 'H/zepa 'Hjuepa Jl^pco, Septima Dies, Dies De- 
side rabilis, Sabbatum Jehovce.The Seventh-dag Sabbath the 
desirable dag, the closing, completing Dag of the first cre- 
ated Week, which was, is, and will be, the first measure of 
all succeeding weeks in their successive courses, both far 
working in the six foregoing dags, and for rest in the Sev- 
enth, which is the last day, by an unchanged law of well 
established order, both in the ret ceded Word and in crea- 
ted Nature." 

The character of this man and his sufferings 
in behalf of the truth, are shown in the work 
of an English author of later time, Edmund 
Calamy, who gives the following account of 
him :* 

" He was descended from an ancient and honorable 
family in Devonshire, and being designed for the minie - 

*Non-Conformists Memorial, vol. 2, p. 149, seq. 



190 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

try from his birth, was educated accordingly ; his own 
inclination concurring with the design of his pious pa- 
rents. When he left the university (where he contin- 
ued seven or eight years) he was ordained a Deacon 
of the Church of England by Bp. Hall ; afterwards Pres- 
byter by Bp. Skinner, and was soon after prefered to a 
living in Dorsetshire, of about one hundred pounds per 
annum, where he took great pains to instruct his peo- 
ple, and promote true religion among them. Having- 
an annuity of eighty pounds a year settled upon him for 
life, he spent all the income of his place in acts of char- 
ity among his parishioners, in giving them Bibles and 
other good books, setting the poor to work, and reliev- 
ing the necessities of those that were disabled ; not suf- 
fering a beggar, knowingly, to be in his parish. While 
he was here, he began to see that in many ways the 
Church of England needed reformation, in regard to doc- 
trine, worship, and discipline ; and therefore, as became 
a faithful minister, he heartily set about it, making the 
laws of Christ his only rule. But herein he met great 
opposition and trouble." 

When the act of uniformity was passed, in 
1662, being unable to conform to its require- 
ments, Mr. Bampfield gave up his place, and 
though he was strictly loyal in all the political 
troubles of those times, he nevertheless suf- 
fered much on account of his non-conformity. 
" Soon after his ejectment he was imprisoned 
for worshiping God in his own family." Not 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 191 

a little injustice and cruelty was shown him 
in these minor imprisonments. But he was 
doomed to much greater trials and sufferings, 
for we learn from Calamy* that, 

" Mr Bampfield afterward suffered eight years impris- 
onment in Dorchester jail, which he bore with great 
courage and patience, being filled with the comfort 
of the Holy Ghost. He also preached in the prison, al- 
most every day, and gathered a Church there. Upon 
his discharge in 1675, he went about ru-eaching the Gos- 
pel in several counties. But he was soon taken up again 
for it in Wiltshire, and imprisoned at Salisbury ; where, 
on account of a fine, he continued eighteen Aveeks. Dur- 
ing this time he wrote a letter which was printed, giv- 
ing an account of his imprisonment, and the joy he had 
in his sufferings for Christ. Upon his release he came 
to London, where he preached privately several years ^ 
with great success, and gathered a people ; who, being 
baptized by immersion, (Mr. Bampfield having become 
a Baptist) formed themselves into a Church, and met at 
Pinner's Hall, which being so public, soon exposed 
them to the rage of their persecutors." 

" On Feb. 17, 1G82, a constable and several men with 
halberts, rushed into the assembly when Mr. Bampfield 
was in the pulpit. The constable ordered him in the 
king's name to come down. He answered that he was 
discharging his office in the name of the King of kings. 
The constable telling him he had a warrant from the 
Lord Mayor, Mr. Bampfield replied : ' I have a warrant 

*p. 151, vol 2d. 



192 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

from Christ who is Lord Maximas, to go on/ and so 
proceeded in his discourse. The constable then bid one 
of the officers pull him down ; when he repeated his 
text ; Isa, 63d. ' The day of vengeance is in his heart, 
and the year of his redeemed ones is come / adding, 
* He will pull down his enemies.' They then seized him, 
and took him with six others, before the Lord Mayor, 
who fined several of them 10£, and bid Mr. Bampfield 
begone. In the afternoon they assembled at the same 
place again, where they met with a fresh disturbance ; 
and an officer, though not without trembling, took Mr. 
Bampfield and led him into the street ; but the consta- 
ble having no warrant, they let him go, so he went, 
with a great company, to his own house, and there fin- 
ished the service. ' 

" On the 24th of the same month, he met his congre- 
gation again at Pinner's Hall, and was again pulled out 
of the pulpit, and led through the streets with his Bible 
in his hand, and great multitudes after him ; some re- 
proaching him, and others speaking in his favor ; one 
of whom said, ' See how he walks with his Bible in his 
hand, like one of the old martyrs.' Being brought to 
the sessions where the Lord Mayor attended, he and 
three more were sent to prison. The next day they 
were brought to the bar, and being examined were re- 
mitted to Newgate. On March 17, 1683, he and some 
others, who were committed for not taking the oaths of 
-allegiance and supremacy, were brought to the Old-Bai- 
ley, indicted, tried, and by the jury (directed by the 
Judge) brought in guilty. On March 28. being brought 
again to the sessions to receive their sentence, the re- 
corder, after odiously aggravating their offence, and re- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 193 

fleeting on scrupulous consciences, read their sentence, 
which was : ' That they were out of the protection of the 
King's Majesty ; that all their goods and chattels were 
forfeited, and they were to remain in jail during their 
lives, or during the king's pleasure.' Upon this Mr. 
Bampfield would have spoken, but there was a great 
cry — ' Away with them, we will not hear them, &c./ and 
so they were thrust away; when Mr. Bampfield said 
' The righteous Lord loveth righteousness ; the Lord 
be judge in this case/ They were then returned to 
Newgate, where Mr. Bampfield (who was of a tender 
constitution) soon after died in consequence of the 
hardships he suffered, much lamented by his fellow 
prisoners, as well as by his friends in general. Notwith- 
standing his peculiar sentiments, all who knew him 
acknowledged that he was a man of serious piety, and 
deserved a different treatment from what he met with 
from an unkind world. He was one of the most cele- 
brated preachers in the West of England, and extremely 
admired by his hearers, till he fell into the Sabbatariaii 
notion, of which he was a zealous asserter." 

Thus even the enemies oi the Sabbath bear 
highest testimony in favor of this noble mar- 
tyr for the truth. 

In 1692, there appeared a work from Thomas 
Bampfield, a brother of the man mentioned 
above. It's- title runs as follows : 

" An enquiry whether the Lord Jesus Christ made the 
world, and be Jehovah, and gave the Moral law f and 
whether the Fourth Commandment be repealed or not:' 



194 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

This work was answered by John Wallis, 
D.D., Professor of Geometry in the University 
of Oxford, which elicited a second book in re- 
ply by Mr. Bampfield, entitled, 

" A Reply to Br. Wallis, his Discourse concerning 
the Christian Sabbath." — London, 1683. 

An examination of these works shows that 
he was a writer of no mean ability. He was 
a Barrister and being less connected with the 
Church and theological matters than his brother, 
does not appear as prominently in history. He 
is however noticed by both Calamy and Cox. 
Wallis wrote a second book in reply to Thos. 
Bampfield's second work, which was published 
in 1694. Passing into the next century, 
another book comes before the public in 1724, 
from the pen of George Carlow, entitled, " Truth 
defended, or Observations on Mr. Ward's exposi- 
tory discourses from the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th 
verses of the 20th chapter of Exodus, concerning 
the Sabbath" This work was reprinted in 
America, at Stonington, Conn, in 1802, and 
again by the American Sabbath Tract Society; in 
New York. The following historic notice of 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 195 

the author is taken from the American edition 
of 1847 : 

Of the personal history of George Carlow, 
but little is known. He was a member of the 
Sabbath-keeping Church which once flourished 
at Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng. Having visited 
London, probably for purposes connected with 
the publication of his book, he was recom- 
mended to the fellowship of the Church of 
Mill Yard, in Goodman's Fields. Hence his 
name appears upon the records of that Church 
as a Transient Member. He was evidently a 
man of plain parts, not schooled in the rules 
of logic, but learned in the Scriptures. 
From that Fountain of true wisdom, the 
Word of * God, he had imbibed a spirit 
which gives a pungency and heart- searching 
character to his writings not often found in 
books of controversy. The argumentative 
part of the subject is not perhaps so well man- 
aged in this book as in some more modern 
publications. But as the author was well read 
in the controversies concerning the Sabbath, 
the historical information which he presents 



196 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

is very valuable. The whole work is charac- 
terized by a spirit of evangelical piety and 
earnestness which must make its influence 
powerful and salutary wherever read. We 
commend it to the dilligent perusal of every 
Christian. 

A pastor of the L ' Mill Yard Seventh-day 
Baptist Church" in London. Robert Corn- 
thwaite published five books upon the Sabbath 
question. The first was published about 1733, 
and the last in 1740. These are their titles in 
order : 



1. " Be flections on Dr. Wright's Treatise on the Relig- 
ious observation of the Lord's Day, according to the 
express words of the Fourth Commandment, showing the 
inconclusiveness of the Doctors reasoning on that subject, 
and the impossibility of grounding the First day Sabbath 
on the Fourth Commandment, or any other text of 
Scriptures produced by him for that purpose." 

2. " The Seventh Day of the 'week the Christiam Sabbath. 
London, 1735." 



8. " The Seventh-day Sabbath farther Vindicated , or a 
Defense of some Reflections on Dr. Wrighfs Treatise on 
the Religious observation of the Lord's Day, according to 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 197 

the express words of the Fourth Commandment ; as, also, 
of the Seventh-day of the Week, the Christian Sabbath, 
against the exceptions of Mr. Caleb Flemming."* 
London, 1736. 

4. " A Second Defence of some Reflections on Dr. 
Wright's ' Treatise on the Religious observation of the 
Lord's Day, &e. against the exceptions of Mr. Caleb 
Flemming, in which Ins application of Gen. ii: 2, 3, is 
considered, and shown to be as inconsistent as the Doctors 
Explication of the Fourth Commandment ; and the 
Seventh-day Sabbath is proved to oblige all Christians on 
Protestant Principles.— London, about 1737, 

o. "An Essay on the Sabbath, or a. modest attempt 
towards a plain, scriptural resolution. 1. Whether the 
Seventh-day Sabbath teas given to Adam in Paradise. 
2. Whether the same now obliges Christians, occasioned 
by the following pieces lately wrote upon the subject, viz : 
Mr. Hallett's Discourse on the Lord's Day ; Mr. Jeph- 
son's Discourse concerning the Religious Observation of 
the Lord's Day, dr. Mr. Chubb' s Dissertation concern- 
ing the Time of Keeping a Sabbath. Mr. KillingicortJv $ 
Appendix to his Supplement to the sermon preached at 
Salters Hall, against Popery ; Mr. Dobels Seventh-day 
Sabbath not obligatory on Christians, aud his Appendix; 
and Dr. Watt's Holiness of Times, Places and Peoples. 
In which everything judged material, offered by any of 
these gentlemen on the negative side of either of the above 
mentioned questions, is impartially considered." Lon don , 
1740. 

An Unitarian minister whose work was published 
the same year. 



198 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Eobert Cox* quotes largely from this work, 
and says : 

" Mr. Cornthwaite is one of the ablest defenders of the 
positions taken up by the Seventh-day Baptists. 

It will be seen by the titles that Mr. 
Cornthwaite's books were mostly controversial. 
They were widely circulated, and the replies 
to them were written by some of • the most 
eminent men of those times. Notices of other 
Sabbatarian authors will be found in the next 
chapter, in connection with the history of 
Churches. 

*Sabbath Literature, vol. 2, p. 198. 




CHAPTER VI. 

Seventh- Day 
|3aptist Churches in England. 

HE Seventh-day Baptists were the 
most radical reformers, and the most 
fearless dissenters that took part in 
the English Reformation. Every 
influence opposed the organization of such 
men into Churches ; even their public meetings 
were prohibited at times by law. Hence no 
Churches were regularly organized until about 
1650. Between that time and the close of 
the century at least eleven Churches were 
organized, and there were man} 7 unorganized 
Sabbath-keepers scattered through the king- 
dom. These Churches were located at Brain - 
tree, in Essex, Chersey, Norweston, Salisbury, 
in Wiltshire, Sherbourne, in Buckinghamshire, 
Tewksbury, or Natton, in Gloucestershire, 
Wallmgford, Berkshire, Woodbridge, in Suf- 



200 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

folk ; and three in London, viz : the Mill-yard 
Church, the Cripplegate Church, and the Pin- 
ners Hall Church. The history of these 
Churches is found most complete in the 
" Manual of Seventh-day Baptists" by Rev. 
George B. Utter. The material for their 
history was " collected on the ground," and 
is both minute and reliable. The follow- 
ing pages are taken largely from that work, 
which was published in 1858. On page 20 
Mr. Utter speaks as follows : 

" Eight of these Churches are now extinct, and no 
complete account of them is known to exist. Of the 
three which remain, the following is a brief sketch : 

"THE MILL-YARD CHURCH." 

" The Mill- Yard Church is located in the eastern part 
of London. At what time it was organized is not cer- 
tainly known. . The Book of Records now in possession 
of the Church reaches back only to 1673 ; but as it 
contains no account of the organization, and refers to 
another book which had been previously used, it is 
probable that the Church dates from a period consid- 
erably earlier. Indeed there can be but little doubt 
from its. location and doctrinal views, that this Church 
is a perpetuation of the Society gathered by John James, 
the martyr, which originally met in Bull Steak Alley, 
Whitechapel. It is probably safe therefore, to put down 






SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 201 

John James as the first pastor of the Mill- Yard Church . 
On the 19th day of October, 1661, while Mr. James was 
preaching, an officer entered the place of worship, pulled 
him down from the pulpit, and led him away to the 
court under a strong guard. About thirty members of 
his congregation were taken before a bench of justices, 
then sitting at a tavern in the vicinity, where the oath 
of allegiance was tendered to each, and those who re- 
fused it were committed to Newgate Prison. Mr. James 
himself was examined and committed to Newgate r 
on the testimony of several profligate witnesses, who 
accused him of speaking treasonable words against the 
King. His trial took place about a month afterward, at 
which he conducted himself in such a manner as to 
create much sympathy. He was, however, sentenced 
to be ' hanged, drawn, and quartered.' This awful 
sentence did not dismay him in the least. He calmly 
said, ' Blessed be God, whom man condemneth, God 
justifieth.' While he lay in prison, under sentence of 
death, many persons of distinction visited him, who 
were greatly affected by his piety and resignation, and 
offered to exert themselves to secure his pardon. But 
he seems to have had little hope of their success. Mrs 
James, by advice of her friends, twice presented peti- 
tions to the King, setting forth the innocence of her 
husband, the character of the witnesses against him r 
and entreating His Majesty to grant a pardon. In both 
instances she was repulsed with scoffs and ridicule. At 
the scaffold, on the day of his execution, Mr. James 
addressed the assembly in a very noble and affecting 
manner. Having finished his address, and kneeling 
down, he thanked God for covenant mercies and for 



202 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

•conscious innocence ; lie prayed for the witnesses against 
him, for the executioner, for the people of God, for the 
removal of divisions, for the coming of Christ, for the 
spectators and for himself, that he might enjoy a sense 
of God's favor and presence, and an entrance into glory. 
When he had ended, the executioner said, ' The Lord 
receive your soul,' to which Mr. James replied, ' I thank 
thee.' A friend observing to him, ' This is a happy 
day,' he answered, ' I bless God it is.' Then, having 
thanked the Sheriff for his courtesy, he said, ' Father* 
into Thy hands I commit my Spirit'; and was immedi- 
ately launched into eternity. After he was dead, his 
heart was taken out, and burned, his quarters were 
affixed to the gates of the city, and his head was set up 
in Whitechapel on a pole opposite the Alley in which 
his meeting-house stood." 

" William Sellers was pastor of the Mill-Yard Church, 
at the time when the present Records begin, 1673. The 
Church was then in a prosperous condition, the mem- 
bers were quite numerous, and strict discipline was 
maintained. Mr. Sellers was probably the author of a 
work on the Sabbath, in review of Dr. Owen* which 
appeared in 1671. He is supposed to have continued 
his ministry until 1678. 

" Henry Soursby succeeded Mr. Sellers. He was a 
man of considerable controversial talent, which he ex- 
ercised in defense of the Sabbath. The Church Records 
allude to a book upon the subject prepared by him. He 

* Dr. Hessey, p. 374, mentions Sellers, as one who 
wrote against Dr. Owen. He also mentions Soursby as 
a Sabbatarian author. Also one Smiths, of whom we 
have been able to find no farther account. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 208 

ministered to the Church until 1710." 

" Two persons named Slater about this time preached 
occasionally. But as there is no notice of their having 
become elders, it is quite likely that they were only 
* preaching brethren ' — a class of persons always much 
encouraged in this Church." 

" In 1711, Mr. Savage became pastor of the Church. 
He had for an assistant, or co-pastor, the venerable Mr. 
John Maul-den, who had long been the pastor of a 
Baptist Church in Goodman's Fields, which he left be- 
cause he had embraced Sabbatarian principles." 

"After the death of Mr. Maulden and Mr. Savage 
there was a vacancy in the pastoral office, the preaching 
brethren officiating on the Sabbath, in an order pre- 
scribed at the business meetings of the Church. It was 
daring this vacancy in 1720, that Dr. Joseph Stennett 
was invited to take the pastoral care of the Church, 
which after considerable delay he declined." 

" In 1726, Robert Cornthwaite joined himself to 
this Church. He was originally connected with the 
Established Church ; but becoming convinced that the 
Gospel did not prescribe any religious establishment, he 
identified himself with the dissenters, and commenced 
preaching among the Baptists. When the Sabbath 
question came before him, he decided to keep the 
Seventh day, and was chosen pastor of the Mill-Yard 
Church, which position he continued to occupy until his 
death in 1754. Mr. Cornthwaite was a man of much 
mental vigor, and great tenacity for whatever he deemed 
true and scriptural. He published six works relating 
to the Sabbath, which contributed much to draw atten- 
tion to the subject, and to improve the condition of the 
Church." 



204 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

" Daniel Noble, the successor of Mr. Cornthwaite, 
descended from a Sabbatarian family. He became pi- 
ous at an early age, and entered upon preparation for 
the ministry. His studies were pursued first in London, 
then under Dr. Rotheram at Kendall, and afterward 
at the Glasgow University. He commenced preaching 
occasionally at Mill- Yard in 1752, and took the oversight 
of the Church when the pastoral office became vacant. 
His ministry continued until his death in 1783." 

" About that time, William Slater, a member of 
the Church, was invited to conduct the services. He 
was afterward ordained as a preacher, became the pas- 
tor, and discharged the duties of the office until he died 
in 1819." 

" For many years after the death of Mr. Slater, the 
Church was without a pastor, the pulpit being supplied 
by several ministers of other denominations, until the 
election of the present elder and pastor, William 
Henry Black, in 1840 * 

" The Mill-Yard Church is indebted to one of its early 
members for a very liberal endowment. Mr. Joseph 
Davis was probably a member of the Church at the 
time that John James suffered martyrdom. Being a 
man of considerable influence, aud very bold in the 
advocacy of his opinions, he became obnoxious to the 
dominant party, and was exposed to severe persecutions. 
He was a prisoner in Oxford Castle for nearly ten years, 
from which he was released in 1673 by order of the 

* Mr. Black is still pastor of the Mill- Yard Church. 
Notices of him may be found in Mr. Gilfillans work on 
the Sabbath ; and in the 2d vol. of Cox's Sabbath Lit- 
erature. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 205 

King. Soon after being set free, he entered into business 
in London ; and notwithstanding the interruption of his 
business occasioned by a strict observance of the Sab- 
bath, he prospered beyond his highest expectations. 
He soon found himself at ease, surrounded by a happy 
family, and enjoying the confidence of a large circle of 
friends. Near the close of his life, Mr. Davis says his 
heart was drawn forth to do something for the pure 
worship of his Lord and Saviour, and to manifest that 
outward blessings had not been bestowed upon him in 
vain. He felt that ' The Lord had sent him as a Joseph 
to do something for the cause of religion.' Under the 
influence of this impression, he purchased in 1691 the 
grounds adjoining the present meeting-house, erected a 
place of worship, and thus provided for the permanence 
of the society with which he was connected. This 
property was conveyed to Trustees duly appointed by 
the Church in the year 1700. In 1706, just before his 
death, Mr. Davis bequeathed the bulk of his property 
to his son, subject to an annual rent-charge in favor of 
the Mill- Yard Church, together with seven other Sabba- 
tarian Churches in England. He likewise made a con- 
ditional provision in favor of the Church, by virtue of 
which it afterward came into possession of the principal 
part of his estate." 

THE CRIPPLEGATE CHURCH. 

" The congregation of Sabbatarians in London com- 
monly known as the Cripplegate or Devonshire Square 
Church, was gathered in the reign of King Charles II. 
by the learned Mr. Francis Bampfield, who descended 
from an honorable family in Devonshire, and was 



206 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

brother to Thomas Bampfield, Speaker in one of Mr. 
Cromwell's Parliaments." 

The history of Mr. Bampfield has been no- 
ticed in the preceding chapter. The Records 
of this Church show it to have been organized 
March 5th, 1676. Mr. Bampfield was pastor 
of it at the time of his final imprisonment and 
death in 1684. We learn from Mr. Utter that : 

" After the imprisonment of Mr. Bampfield, the 
Church was dispersed for a season. But the times be- 
coming more favorable, they re-united in Church fellow- 
ship on the 14th day of October, 1686, and invited Mr. 
Edward Stennett, of Wallingford, to take the over- 
sight of them. He acceded to their wishes in part, and 
came to London at stated periods to preach and admin- 
ister the ordinances. He still retained his connection 
with the people at Wallingford. however ; and finding 
it difficult also to serve the Church in London as he de- 
sired, he resigned the pastoral care of them in 1689. 
and recommended the appointment of some one to fill 
his place. Mr. Stennett is described as ' a Minister of 
note and learning in those times.' He is distinguished 
as being the ancestor of the famous Stennett family, 
who all kept the Seventh day, and were for several 
generations an ornament to religion, and to the cause of 
Protestant Dissent. The part which he took in the 
civil wars, being on the side of Parliament, exposed him 
to the neglect of his relatives, and many other difficul- 
ties. His dissent from the Established Church deprived 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 207 

him of the means of maintaing his family, although he 
was a faithful and laborious minister. He therefore 
applied himself to the study of medicine, by the practice 
of which he was enabled to provide for his children, 
and to give them a liberal education. He bore a con- 
siderable share in the persecutions which fell upon the 
Dissenters of his time. Several instances are recorded 
in which his escape seems altogether miraculous, and 
affords a striking evidence of Divine interposition." 

" In 1690, Joseph Stennett, the second son of Edward 
Stennett, was ordained pastor of this Church. With a 
view to usefulness in the ministry, he early devoted 
himself to study, mastered the French and Italian lan- 
guages, became a critic in the Hebrew, and made con- 
siderable progress in philosophy and the liberal sciences. 
He came to London in 1685, and was employed for a 
time in the education of youth. He was at length pre- 
vailed upon by the earnest solicitations of his friends., 
to appear in the pulpit w T here his efforts led to his being- 
called to succeed his father. His ministry was emi- 
nently evangelical and faithful. His labors were not 
confined to his own people ; but while he served there 
on the Seventh day, he preached frequently to other 
congregations on the first day. Among the Dissenters 
of England he maintained a high standing and exerted 
a wide influence. In the reign of King William he was 
chosen by the Baptists to draw up and present their 
Address to His Majesty on his deliverance from the 
assassination plot. On another occasion he was appoin- 
ted by the dissenting ministers of London to prepare 
an Address to Queen Anne, which was presented in 
1706. He also prepared a paper of advice, which was 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 208 

presented by the citizens of London to their representa- 
tives in Parliament, in 1708. When David Kussen pub- 
lished his book, ''Fundamentals without a Foundation 
or a True Picture of the Anabaptists" Mr. Stennett was 
prevailed on to answer it, which he did so successfully 
that his antagonist never thought best to reply. The 
popularity which he gained by this work, led to many 
solicitations from his friends to prepare a complete His- 
tory of Baptism. This he intended to have done, and 
he was several years engaged in collecting materials for 
it. But the feeble state of his health prevented his 
carrying out the plan. Early in the year 1713, he began 
to decline more rapidly, and on the 11th day of July he 
fell asleep, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the 
twenty-third of his ministry/' 

" For fourteen years after the death of Mr. Stennett, 
the Church was without a pastor, during which time 
the pulpit was supplied by ministers of other denomi- 
nations, or the meetings on the Sabbath were held with 
the Mill-Yard Church. But on the 3d of December, 
1727, aacording to the Record, ' the Church gave them- 
selves up to Mr. Edmund Townsend,' who continued 
to serve them as pastor until his death in 1763. Although 
not an educated man, Mr. Townsend was a faithful and 
useful minister, and was much esteemed among his own 
people and others with whom he associated. He appears 
to have come to London as a Messenger from the Church 
at Natton. For a while he preached to both of the Lon- 
don Churches, in the Mill- Yard meeting house, until 
invited to take the pastoral care of the Cripplegate 
Church. 

Cl After the death of Mr. Townsend, the Church was 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 209 

for four years supplied with preaching by various Bap- 
tist Ministers, until Mr. Thomas Whitewood was cho- 
sen pastor, in June, 1767. His race, however, was short, 
for after having preached three times, and administering 
the Lord's Supper once, he was laid aside by severe ill- 
ness, of which he died in October of the same year." 

" At that time Samuel Stennett, D. D., a great 
grandson of Edward Stennett, and son of Joseph Sten- 
nett, D. D., was pastor of the Baptist Church in Little 
Wild Street, London. As his principles and practice 
corresponded with those of the Cripplegate Church, — 
* his judgment as is well known, being for the observance 
of the Seventh day, which he strictly regarded in his- 
own family' — he was solicited to accept the pastoral 
office. There is no record, however, of his having done 
so, although he performed the duties of a pastor, admin- 
istered the Lord's Supper, and preached for them regu- 
larly on the Sabbath morning. The afternoon service/ 
was conducted by four Baptist ministers in rotation, 
among whom were Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Bippon. 

" This order of things continued for nearly twenty 
years, until, in 1785, Robert Burnside was chosen pas- 
tor of the Church. Mr. Burnside belonged to a Sabbath- 
keeping family, was received into the Church in 1776, 
and was afterward educated for the ministry at the 
Marischal College, Aberdeen. He sustained the pasto- 
ral relation to the Church forty-one years. Meanwhile 
a large portion of his time was occupied in giving in- 
struction in . families of distinction, and in preparing 
several works for the press, among which were a volume 



210 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

on the subject of the Sabbath,* and two volumes on the 
Religion of mankind. Mr. Burnside died in 1826." 

" John Brittain Shenstone succeeded Mr. Burnside. 
During the early part of his public life, Mr. Shenstone 
labored as a minister among the Baptists. For more 
than forty years he was connected with the Board of 
Baptist Ministers in London, and as the senior member 
was pleasantly called the father of the Board. Having 
become convinced of the claims of the Seventh day, he 
commenced observing it as the Sabbath in 1825. Soon 
after Mr. Burnside's death, he was called to the pastoral 
care of the Church, and he continued to fill the office 
until his own death, on the 12th day of May, 1844. 

" Since the death of Mr. Shenstone, the Church has 
been without a pastor, but has enjoyed the ministerial 
labors of several Baptist preachers." 

"THE NATTON CHURCH." 

. " The Natton Church is located in Tewkesbury, in the 
west of England, about ninety miles from London, and 
fifteen from Gloucester. The precise date of its organi 
zation is not known. It is certain, however, that the 
Church was in existence as early as 1660 ; and it is 
quite probable that there were Sabbath-keepers in that 
region as early as 1640, who were pr evented from form- 

*Mr. Burnside's work on the Sabbath is a very able 
one. It was republished in America by Joseph Stillman 
in 1827, and is entitled, " Remarks on the different sen- 
timents entertained in Christendom, relative to the 
weekly Sabbath." The American reprint is not now in 
market. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 211 

ing a regular Church, by the unsettled state of the 
country and their exposure to persecution." 

" The first pastor of the Natton Church, of whom any 
reliable account can be given, was Mr. John Purser. 
He is spoken of as a very worthy man, who suffered 
much persecution for conscience sake, between 1660 
and 1690. He descended from an honorable family, and 
was heir to a considerable estate, of which his father 
disinherited him because he persisted in keeping the 
Seventh day as the Sabbath. But it pleased God to bless 
him in the little which he had, so that he became a 
reputable farmer, as did many of the most worthy 
ministers of that time. He reared up a large family of 
children, who 'all walked in his steps.' The princi- 
pal place of meeting, in the early days of the Church, 
was at the house of Mr. Purser, in Asston ; but other 
meetings were held at different places within a range 
of twenty-five miles, for the accommodation of the 
widely-scattered members. Mr. Purser was a faithful 
minister among them until the close of his life, in 1720." 

" About that time there were two young men in the 
Church who gave promise of considerable usefulness — 
Mr. Philip Jones and Mr. Thomas Boston. Mr. Jones 
was chosen pastor of the Church, and discharged the 
duties of that office until his death, in 1770 — a period 
nearly fifty years." 

" Mr. Jones was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. Thomas 
Hiller, who, although a Sabbatarian, became also the 
pastor of a First-day Baptist Church in Tewkesbury. 
His ministry is spoken of as having been successful at 
Natton as well as at Tewkesbury." 

"After the death of Mr. Hiller, the Church was for 



312 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

many years destitute of a pastor, but sustained meet- 
ings on the Sabbath with the aid of a worthy Baptist 
preacher residing in Tewkesbury. At present, it is 
presided over by Mr. John Francis, under whose pas- 
toral care there have been several additions to its mem- 
bership." 

" In 1718, Mr. Benjamin Purser, a son of the first 
pastor of the Natton Church, purchased an estate at 
Natton, on which he fitted up a chapel for worship on 
the Sabbath. It is a small room^with a board floor, a 
pulpit, one pew, a row of benches, a communion table, 
and a gallery. When he died, in 1765, he left the 
chapel and burying-place to the Church, together with 
a small annuity from his estate to all succeeding 
ministers." 

Such was the state of the English Seventh- 
day Baptist Churches in 1858. Kobert Cox 
in the second volume of his " Sabbath Litera- 
ture v published in 1865, in speaking of John 
Bunyan's little book upon the Sabbath, which 
was written to confute the arguments of the 
Seventh -day Baptists, and published in 1685 ; 
and not republished until 1806 — says : " the 
reason why it was not republished probably 
was that the Churches of the Sabbath-keepers 
soon after died away. At present we only 
know of three; the chief is at Mill- Yard, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 213 

London, where my talented antiquarian friend 
W. EL Black preaches to a little family on the 
Jewish Sabbath."* 

*p. 80. 



CHAPTER VII. 
Phe Sabbath in America. 

HE same divine hand which guarded 
the Sabbath through the dark cen- 
turies between the first great apos- 
tacy and the reformation, transferred 
it from England to America, the last battle- 
ground whereon the great reforms of modern 
times have been and are being carried forward. 
True Sabbath Reform could not find a place 
among the masses until that second great 
error, the " Puritan Sunday " had borne its 
fruit, decayed in weakness, and crumbled 
from the hands of the Church. This trial 
could best be made in America. Hence, gui- 
ded by that " divinity which shapes our 
ends." in 166i Stephen Mumford emigrated 
from England to Newport, Rhode Island. 
He "brought with him the opinion that the 
Ten Commandments as they were delivered 
from Mount Sinai, were moral and immutable. 



216 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

and that it was an anti-christian power which 
changed the Sabbath from the Seventh to the 
first day of the week." He united with the 
Baptist Church in Newport, and soon gained 
several of its members to the observance of 
the Sabbath. This led to much discussion, 
and finally an open separation took place, and 
the first Seventh-day Baptist Church in Amer- 
ica was organized by these Sabbath -keepers in 
the month of December 1671. * "William 
Hiscox was chosen and ordained their pastor 
which office he filled until his death in 1704, 
in the 66th year of his age. He was succeeded 
by William Gibson, a minister from London, 
who continued to labor among them* until he 
died, in 1717, at the age of 79 years. Joseph 
Crandall, who had been his colleague for 
two years, was selected to succeed him and 
presided over the Church until he died, in 
1737. Joseph Maxson and Thomas Hiscox 

* A full and interesting account of the formation of 
this Church with a complete account of the discussions 
and final separation, may be found in vol. 1. of the Sev- 
enth-day Baptist Memorial, pp. 22 to 46. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 217 

were evangelists of the Church about this 
time, the former haying been chosen in 1732 
and died in 1748. John Maxson was chosen 
pastor in 1754, and performed the duties of the 
office until 1778. He was followed by William 
Bliss, who served the Church as pastor until 
his death, in 1808, at the age 81 years. Henry 
Burdick, succeeded to the pastorate of the 
Church, and occupied that post until his 
death. Besides its regular pastors, the New- 
port Church ordained several ministers, who 
labored with great usefulness, both at home 
and abroad. The Church also included among 
its early members several prominent public 
men, one 1 of whom, Eichard Ward, Governor 
of the State of Ehode Island, is well known 
to history. 

For more than thirty years after its organi- 
zation, the Newport Church included nearly 
all persons observing the Seventh day in the 
States of Ehode Island and Connecticut ; and 
its pastors were accustomed to hold religious 
meetings at several places, for the better ac- 
commodation of the widely-scattered member- 



318 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

ship. In 1708, however, the brethren living 
in what was then called Westerly, R L, com- 
prehending all the south-western part of the 
State, thought best to form another society. 
Accordingly they proceeded to organize a 
Church, now called the First Hopkinton, 
which had a succession of worthy pastors, 
became very numerous, and built three meet- 
ing-houses for the accommodation of the 
members in different neighborhoods."'* In 
this last place Mr. Backus adds the following- 
notice in connection with his list of the pastors 
of what he calls the "Third Church in Newport, 
who keep the Seventh-day. — Mr. Bbenezer 
David, (who was first converted in Providence 
College, and took his first degree there in 
1772) belonged to this church ; and having 
been a chaplain, much esteemed, in our army, 
died therein, not far from Philadelphia, a few 
days after Mr. Maxon. ? ' 

The agitation concerning the Sabbath which 

* See manual of the Seventh-day Baptists, pp. 40 41, 
also Backus's History of New England, vol. 1, p. 411, 
and vol. 2, p. 398. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 219 

the early Seventh-day Baptists induced was 
not confined to Newport Mr. Backus says* 
that the Baptists in Boston sent a kind letter 
to these Sabbath-keepers before their separa- 
tion from Mr. Clarke's Church, urging them 
not to chide, as " apostates," certain ones who 
had left the Sabbath, and not to separate them- 
selves from their Church relations with the 
First-day Baptists. In another place,f Mr. 
Backus gives a lon£ letter from Roger Wil- 
liams, to Mr. Hubbard a member of the 
Newport Seventh-day Baptist Church, who 
had called Mr. Williams ' attention to the 
claims of the Seventh-day as the only Sabbath. 
Mr. Williams professes to have studied the 
subject carefully, but to be unable to agree 
with Mr. Hubbard's views concerning it. The 
following letter from a prominent Seventh- 
dav Baptist in London, which was written 
because of the persecution of Sabbath -keepers 
in Connecticut is a specimen of the correspon- 
dence on this question at that time. 

* Hist, of New England, vol. 1. p. 411. 
f Vol. 1, pp. 510—12. 



220 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

"Peter Chmctberlairi senior Doctor of both Universi- 
ties, and first and eldest physician in ordinary to his 
majesty's person, according to the world, bnt according 
to grace, a servant of the Word of God, to the excellent 
and noble governor of New England ; grace, mercy, 
peace and truth, from Grod our Father, and from our 
Lord Jesus Christ ; praying for you that you may 
abound in heavenly graces and temporal comforts." 

The letter goes on to say that the first 
design of the men of New England was to 
establish a system of civil and religious 
liberty, a system to u suppress sin but not to 
suppress liberty of conscience." He argues, 
showing great familiarity with the scriptures, 
that " whatever is against the ten command- 
ments in sin," and closes as follows : 

" While Moses and Solomon caution men so much 
against adding to or taking from — Deut. 4: 2. Prov. 
30: 5, 6. And so doth the beloved apostle, Rev. 22: 18, 19. 
What shall we say of those that take away of those ten 
words, or those that make them void, and teach men 
so ! Nay, they dare to give the lie to Jehovah, and 
make Jesus Christ not only the breaker of the law, but 
the very author of sin in others, also causing them to 
break them. Hath not the ' Little Horn' played his 
part lustily in this, and worn out the saints of the mos* 
High, so that they became ' Little Horn' men also ? If 
you are pleased to inquire about these things, and to 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 221 

require any instances or informations, be pleased by 
your letters to command it from your humble servant 
in the Lord Jesus Christ,'* 

Peter Chamberlin. 

Mr. Backus also notices a similar correspon- 
dence between Dr. Chamberlain and one Mr. 
Olnev, about the same time.* 

In Felt's Ecclesiastical History of New 
England, f is found the following under date 
of April 3d, 1646. 

"John Cotton writes an argument to Thomas Sheppard 
to prove that the first day of the Aveek, and not the 
Seventh, should be observed as the Christian Sabbath. 
This subject was much discussed by New England 
ministers against objectors." 

On page 614 of the same volume, is a similar 
notice of a letter from one Mr. Hooker to 
Mr. Sheppard on the same theme. Copies of 
a small book on the Sabbath, written by this 
same Thomas Sheppard and published at an 
early day in Connecticut, are still extant, 
These facts, and the one already referred to, 
that many prominent and learned men, both 

*Ib. Id. 

(-Vol. 1, p. 596. 



222 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

in the colony of Rhode Island and in England 
were Seventh-day Baptists, show that the 
agitation concerning the Sabbath was neither 
feeble in character, or meager in extent. 

Such was the beginning of the Seventh-day 
Baptists in New England. Detailed accounts 
of the times and places when and where other 
Churches were formed, will be given in 
another place. Those who wish to read more 
concerning the foregoing points, are referred 
to the different works quoted, especially the 
Seventh-day Baptist memorial.* 

The second branch of the Seventh -day 
Baptist Church in America was also planted 
by emigration from England. About the 
year 1684, Abel Noble a Seventh-day Baptist 
Minister from London settled near Philadel- 
phia. The following extract from a late work 
by Rev. James Bailey f gives the following : 

" Able Noble arrived in this country about the year 
1784, and located near Philadelphia. He was a Seventh- 

*Vol. 1. 

fHistory of the Seventh-day Baptist General Con- 
ference, pp. 11-15. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 223 

day Baptist Minister when lie came. About this time 
a difference arose among the Quakers in reference to 
the sufficiency of what every man has naturally within 
himself for the purpose of his own salvation. This dif- 
ference resulted in a separation under the leadership of 
George Keith. These seceders were soon after known 
as Keithian Baptists. Through the labors of Able 
Noble, many of them embraced the Bible Sabbath, and 
were organized into Churches near the year 1700. These 
Churches were Newton, Pennepeck, Nottingham and 
French Creek, and probably, Conogocheage." * * * 
" The Churches of Pennsylvania fraternized with the 
Churches in Rhode Island and New Jersey, and coun- 
selled them in matters of discipline. Some of their 
members also united with these Churches. Some of 
them, with some members of the Church of Piscataway , 
and others of Cohansey, near Princeton, emigrated to 
the Parish of St. Mark, S. C. and formed a Church on 
Broad River in 1754. Five years later, in 1759, eight 
families removed from Broad River and formed a settle- 
ment and a Church at Tuckaseeking, in Georgia. These 
Churches have long since become extinct."* 

Speaking again of the Pennsylvania Chur- 
ches, Mr. Bailey says : 

" Rev. Enoch David was, for several years, connected 
with these Churches as their preacher." * * * " He 
was the son of Owen David, who emigrated from Wales. 
He lived some time in Philadelphia, and labored as a 
tailor." * * * " The Churches coming out from the 

^Traces of these Sabbath-keepers are still found in 
the south. 



>24 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Keithian Quakers, and known as the Keithian Baptists 
and Seventh-day Baptists, retained many of their for- 
mer habits, and in a few years, by divisions and re- 
movals, ceased to exist as distinct Churches. They were 
very numerous in their most prosperous days. There 
are, however, many of their descendents in connection 
with our Southern and Western Churches." 

The third branch of the American Seventh- 
day Baptists originated from causes quite 
unlike those which gave birth to the two 
already mentioned. Edmund Dunham was 
the originator of this movement. He was a 
member of the First-day Baptist Church in 
Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey. 
About the year 1700, he had occasion to 
rebuke one Mr. Bonham for laboring on Sun- 
day. Mr. Bonham replied by demanding the 
divine authority for the observance of Sun- 
day as the Sabbath. Eager to answer this 
demand, Dunham began to search Grod's Word 
for that which he supposed could easily be 
found. His investigations led him to discard 
the Sunday and to embrace the Bible Sabbath. 
Others soon followed his example, and in 1705 
the Piscataway Seventh-day Baptist Church 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 225 

was organized consisting of seventeen mem- 
bers. Edmund Dunham was chosen pastor 
and sent to Ehode Island where he received 
ordination. At his death, his son Jonathan 
Dunham succeeded him in the pastorate. 
This Church still flourishes at New Market, 
New Jersey, and several other Churches have 
been formed directly and indirectly from it 

From these three centers, the Seventh -day 
Baptists have spread westward by emigration 
and missionary effort as will be seen below. 
A number of Churches have ceased to exist ; 
these do not appear in the following list. The 
figures in the list are compiled from the report 
of the Seventh-day Baptist General Conference 
for 1869. The present Post-office address of 
each Church clerk is also given. The old 
Newport Church has but few living members 
and does not keep up a formal ecclesiastical 
organization. 

LIST OF SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST CHURCHES 
IN AMERICA. 

Piscatawav Church, 102 members. Organized 170."). 
Address, New Market, N. J. 



226 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

First Hopkinton Church, 357 members. Organized 
1708. Address, Ashaway, R. I. 

Shiloh Church, 324 members. Organized 1737. Ad- 
dress, Shiloh, N. J. 

New Salem Church, 166 members. Organized 1745. 
Address, New Salem, W. Va. 

Lost Creek Church, 115 members. Organized 1805. 
Address, Lost Creek Church, W. Va. 

Berlin Church, (N. Y.) 142 members. Organized 1780. 
Address, Berlin, N. Y. 

Waterford Church, 66 members. Organized 1784. 
Address, Waterford, Conn. 

Marlborough Church, 95 members. Organized 1811. 
Address, Shiloh. N. J. 

Second Hopkinton Church, 134 members. Organized 
1835. Address, Hopkinton, R. I. 

Rockville Church, 193 members. Organized 1835. 
Address, Rockville, R. I. 

First Westerly Church, 72 members. Organized 1837. 
Address, Westerly, R. I. 

Plainfield Church, 132 members. Organized 1838. 
Address, Plainfield, N. J. 

Pawcatuck Church, 305 members. Organized 1840. 
Address, Westerly, R. I. 

First Church of New York City, 37 members. Or- 
ganized 1845. Address, 470 Grand St. 

Grreenmanville Church, 47 members. Organized 1850. 
Address, Mystic Bridge, Conn. 

Woodville Church, 27 members, Organized 1843. 
Address, Woodville, R. I. 

Second Westerly Church, 26 members. Organized 
1858. Address, Dorrville, R. I. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 227 

Rosenhayn Church, 10 members. Organized 1869. 
Address, Rosenhayn, N. J. 

The above Churches are arranged chrono- 
logically, according to the date of organization. 
They form the Seventh-day Baptist " Eastern 
Association." 

The next fifteen Churches are given in 
nearly chronological order, and taken together 
form the Seventh-day Baptist " Central Asso- 
ciation. 1 ' 

First Brookfield Church, 241 members. Organized 
1797. Address, Leonardsville, N. Y. 

DeRuyter Church, 115 members. Organized 181(>. 
Address, DeRuyter, N. Y. 

Scott Church, 140 members. Organized 1820. Ad- 
dress, Scott, N. Y. 

Hounsfield Church, 25 members. Organized 1841. 
Address, Stowell's Cor. N. Y. 

First Verona Church, 93 members. Organized 1820. 
Address, New London, Conn. 

Adam's Church, 267 members. Organized 1822. Ad- 
dress, Adam's Center, N. Y. 

Second Brookfield Church, 187 members. Organized 
1823. Address, Brookfield, N. Y. 

West Edmeston Church, 117 members. Organized 
1823. Address, W. Edmeston, N. Y. 

Cuyler Church, 49 members. Organized 1824. Ad- 
dress, DeRuyter, N. Y. 



228 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Watson Church, 106 members. Organized 1841. 
Address, Wats«";n, Lewis Co. N. Y. 

Lincklaen Church, 108 members. Organized 1831. 
Address, Lincklaen, N. Y. 

Preston Church, 35 members. Organized 1834. Ad- 
dress, Oxford, N. Y. 

Ostelic Church, 40 members. Organized 1830. Ad- 
dress. South Ostelic N. Y. 

Second Verona Church, 23 members. Organized 
1830. Address, State Bridge, N. Y. 

Clifford Church, 21 members. Organized 1859. Ad- 
dress, Dundaff, Pa. 

The fourteen Churches named below form 
the Seventh-day Baptist Western Association. 

First Alfred Church, 445 members. Organized 1816. 
Address, Alfred Centre, N. Y. 

Second Alfred Church, 208 members. Organized 1831. 
Address, Alfred, N. Y. 

First 'denesee Church, 155 members. Organized 1827. 
Address, Little Genesee. X. Y. 

Third Genesee Church, 54 members. Organized 1843. 
Address, Portville, N. Y. 

Friendship Church, 134 members. Organized 1824. 
Address, Nile, N. Y. 

Hebron Church, 79 members. Organized 1833. Ad- 
dress, Hebron, Pa. 

Hartsville Church, 117 members. Organized 1847. 
Address, Alfred, N. Y. 

Independence Church, 178 members. Organized 1834. 
Address, Independence, N. Y. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 229 

Cussewago Church, 4? members. Organized 1853. 
Address, Venango, Pa. 

Richburg Church, 80 members. Organized 1827. 
Address, Richburg, N. Y. 

Scio Church, 22 members. Organized 1834. Address, 
Wellsville, N. Y. 

Portville Church, 36 members. Organized 1862. Ad- 
dress, Portville, N. Y. 

Jackson Church, 79 members. Organized Ad- 

dress, Jackson Centre, Ohio. 

The following named Churches are among 
the latest ones organized, and form the Sev- 
enth-day Baptist North-Western Association. 

Milton Church, 294 members. Organized 1840. Ad- 
dress, Milton, Wis. 

Albion Church, 363 members. Organized 1843. Ad- 
dress, Albion, Wis. 

Walworth Church, 149 members. Organized 1847. 
Address, Walworth, Wis. 

Christiana Church, 99 members. Organized 1850. 
Address, Utiea, Wis*. 

Berlin (Wis.) Church, 39 members. Organized 1850. 
Address, Berlin, Wis. 

Southampton Church, 111 members. Organized 1850. 
Address, West Hallock, 111. 

Rock River Church, 125 members. Organized 1856. 
Address, West Milton, Wis. 

Welton Church, 111 members. Organized 1855. Ad- 
dress, Welton, Iowa. 

Wasioja and Ashland Church, 101 members. Organ- 
ized 1860. Address, Dodge Centre, Minn. 



280 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Trenton Church, 78 members. Organized 1859. Ad- 
dress, Trenton, Minn. 

Dakota Church, 13 members. Organized 1860. Ad- 
dress, Dakota, Wis. 

Carlston Church, 79 members. Organized 1864. Ad- 
dress, Alden, Minn. 

Carlton Church, 15 members, Organized 1864. Ad- 
dress, Carlton, Iowa. 

New Auburn Church, 35 members. Organized 1864. 
Address, New Auburn, Minn. 

Farina Church, 115 members. Organized 1866. Ad- 
dress, Farina, 111. 

Shanghai Church, 19 members. Organized Ad- 

dress, Shanghai, China. 

Pardee Church, 25 members. Organized 1865. Ad- 
dress, Pardee, Kansas. 

Long Branch Church, 57 members. Organized 1867. 
Address, Long Branch, Nebraska. 

Brookfield (Mo.) Church, 14 members. Organized 
1867. Address, Brookfield, Mo. 

Lima Centre Church, 15 members. Organized 1868. 
Address, Lima Centre, Wis. 

Church of Union, (Wis.) ' Organized 1868. 

Address, Union, Vernon Co. Wis. 

Villa Ridge Church, 15 members. Organized 1869. 
Address, Villa Ridge, 111. 

Pleasant Hill Church, 10 members. Organized 1870. 
Address, South Pass, 111. 

MISSIONARY OPERATIONS. 

The Seventh-day Baptists began missionary 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 231 

work at an early day. This was under the 
direction of the " General Conference" until 
the year 1828. A separate organization then 
took place, which was modified in 1852, since 
which time it has continued under its present 
form and name, " the Seventh-day Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society." Foreign missions in Palestine 
and China were organized about the year 1850, 
and three native preachers are now laboring 
under the direction of this society in China. 
Home Missions are being conducted in the 
west and northwest 

SABBATH PUBLICATIONS. 

Previous to 1843, the publishing of tracts 
and books upon the Sabbath question on the 
part of the Seventh-day Baptists was done by 
private individuals, and by the "New York 
City Sabbath Trad Society:' In 1843 the 
u American Sabbath Tract Society," was or- 
ganized and the publishing interests of the 
"New York City" society, were transferred 
to it. The present society has published a 
series of about twenty-five tracts and books 



232 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Varying from four to one hundred or more 
pages, and treating upon almost every phase bf 
the Sabbath question. The society is at pres- 
ent circulating tracts largely, through the mails 
and otherwise, publishing books, putting 
lecturers into the field and otherwise aiming 
to meet the increasing demand for light 
upon the Sabbath question. 

SCHOOLS. 

The Seventh-day Baptists have always been 
largely represented in the cause of popular 
education. The annual report of the " Sev- 
enth-day Baptist Education Society," made 
in September 1869, shows the existence of 
five Academies, one newly organized College, 
and a University with academic, collegiate, 
mechanical, and theological departments in 
operation. 

The foregoing facts will serve to show 
something of the location and character of the 
Seventh-day Baptists, and of their facilities 
for advancing the cause of Sabbath Reform. 
The belief that there is no divine authority 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 23& 

for setting aside the Sabbath and accepting 
the Sunday in its stead, forms the main feature 
of difference between the Seventh-day Baptists 
and the " General Baptists." Each Church is 
independent, and church government and 
representation are purely " congregational." 
An extract or two from the pen of history 
will close this chapter. The following from 
Arnold's History of Ehode Island, will serve 
to show the character of the early Seventh-clay 
Baptists. 

" The Rev. N, Price, missionary at Westerly, express- 
es his astonishment at the kind treatment he received, 
so unlike that which everywhere else was accorded to 
those who differed from the prevailing religious senti- 
ment, he says : 

"The Sectaries here are chiefly Baptists that keep 
the Saturday as a Sabbath, and are more numerous than 
all the other persuasions throughout the town put 
together, and then proceeds to express his wonder that 
those Baptists, who I imagine would oppose me, and 
all of the same interest with me, should be so far from 
it, that they have expressed a gladness of a ministers 
coming to those of a different persuasion from them ; 
that instead of separating and keeping at a distance 
they should many of them come with my own hearers 
and be as constant as most of them, and but few that 
would not occasionally do it and manifest their liking ; 



234 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

that when I supposed that if they did come, it would be 
to pick and carp, and find fault, and then go away to 
make the worst of it, that they should come after a ser- 
mon and thank me for it ; that instead of shunning me 
and keeping off from an acquaintance with me, they 
should invite me to their houses and be sorry if I would 
pass by without calling ; that their two ministers in the 
town, who I expected would be virulent and fierce 
against me, and stir up their people to stand to their 
arms, should not only hear me, thank me, visit me, but 
take my part against some of their own persuasion that 
showed a narrow spirit towards us, and be the most 
charitable and catholic whom I thought to have found 
the most stiff and prejudiced." 

The above was written in 1721-2 and is 
found in Arnold as above quoted.* 

Robert Baird in his work entitled " Religion 
in Arnerica/'f speaks of the Seventh-day 
Baptists as follows : 

" The population under their instruction and influ- 
ence is reckoned at forty thousand, they are quite evan- 
gelical in the doctrines that relate to the way of salva- 
tion, and are in good repute for piety and zeal. They 
differ from the regular Baptists as to the day to be 
observed as the " Christian Sabbath," maintaining in 
opposition to these, that the Seventh-day was not only 
the Sabbath originally appointed by the Creator, but 

♦Vol. 2, Chapter 24, pp. 86, 87. N. Y. 1860. 
♦Chap. 8, pp. 499, 500. N. Y. 1856. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 235 

that that appointment remains unrepealed. Their Chur- 
ches are widely scattered throughout the States. * * 
Altogether they are a very worthy people." 



CHAPTER VIII. 
The Seventh- Day Adyentists. 




HE following chapter is from the pen 
of Eld. J. N". Andrews of Rochester. 
1ST. Y. who is a representative man 
among the people concerning whom 
he writes. The chapter was prepared during 
the winter of 1867-8. The operations of these 
Adventists in favor of the Sabbath have con- 
siderably increased since that time. 

This body of Sabbath-keepers has arisen 
during the past twenty-four years, and is partic- 
ularly distinguished by the fact that they are be- 
lievers in the near advent of our Lord. To form 
a just judgment of this people, who in several 
respects differ from the Seventh-day Baptists, 
it is necessary to consider their position from 
their own stand point. The advent movement 
of 1843-4, as believed and cherished by them, 
led directly to the Sabbath of the fourth com- 



288 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

mandment. That movement was based upon 
three leading ideas : 

1. That the great outlines of prophecy in 
the books of Daniel and Kevelation, as the 
metallic image, the great beasts, the seals, the 
trumpets, and other prophetic series indicate 
the accomplishment of the long period of 
Gentile rule, and the immediate advent of 
Christ and the judgment, 

2. That the signs of the times mark these 
as the days of expectation of that event. 

3. That the prophetic periods which relate 
to the closing events of our dispensation, and 
especially the 2300 days of Daniel 8, 14. 
point to 1843-4, as the year of their termina- 
tion. 

In studying the subject of prophetic time, 
the ninth chapter of Daniel was found to be 
the key to the eighth. The period of 2300 
days was therefore held to begin with the 
seven weeks at the going forth of the command- 
ment to restore and build Jerusalem, B. C. 
457. Ezra, 7. Taking 457 from 2300 leaves 
1843 for the year of the cleansing of the sane- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 389 

tuary. So the advent of Christ was expected 
that year, because the sanctuary was believed 
to be the earth, and its cleansing to be by fire 
at the coming of the Lord. 

When the year 1843 had expired it was 
seen that if the 2300 days began with the first 
day of 457, B. C. they would then only expire 
with the last day of 1843. But instead of 
this, it was seen that they did not begin until 
the seventh Jewish month 457, B. C. and must 
therefore extend to the seventh Jewish month, 
October 1844. At the same time it was seen that 
the types of the law of Moses set forth the sub- 
ject of the cleansing of the sanctuary, and mark 
the time of the year as the tenth day of the 
seventh month, Lev. 16. The types of the 
spring, as the passover, the first fruits and the 
pentecost met a definite fulfillment as to time 
in the events of the first advent. Ex. 12. 
1 Cor. 5 : 7, 8 ; John, 19 : 14, 18 ; Lev. 23 ; 
Acts, 2:1; 1 Cor. 15 : 23. Why should not 
the type of the cleansing of the sanctuary 
meet its anti-type at the end of the 2300 days 



240 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

in connection with the events of the second 
advent ? 

The 2300 days which extend to the cleans- 
ing of the sanctuary, did in the judgment of 
the advent people plainly point to the seventh 
month, 1844 ; and the types mark the tenth 
day of that month as the time in the year for 
the cleansing of the sanctuary. This caused 
that point of time to be regarded by them 
with the most intense interest as the time for 
the advent of the Savior. It is due to the 
Seventh -day Adventists that it should be sta- 
ted that the movement of 1843-4 is the only 
"time movement" in which they have ever par- 
ticipated, and that they still regard the dates 
then assigned the prophetic periods as the true 
dates. 

When 1844 had passed without the expect- 
ted advent of Christ, then the entire subject 
of the advent faith was carefully re-examined. 
Is the course of earthly empire as marked by 
Daniel and John just read}^ to expire? This 
appeared to the Adventists an undoubted fact. 
Is the millennium before or after Christ's ad- 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 241 

vent? After that event, and not prior to it. 
Have the signs of Christ's second coming 
made their appearance? So the Adventists 
decided. Have the 2300 days been rightly 
reckoned ? They could find no just ground 
to doubt this. Is the earth the sanctuary? 
Is the sanctuary to be cleansed by fire ? Does 
the Saviour cleanse the sanctuary when He 
comes the second time, or does this take place 
before that event ? 

An examination of the Scriptures on these 
points soon discovered the real mistake. There 
is no authority for calling the earth the sanc- 
tuary. There is no reason to believe that the 
sanctuary is cleansed by fire. In fact there 
is clear evidence that the cleansing of the 
sanctuary constitutes a part of the work of 
Christ as high priest before his return in the 
clouds of heaven. 

And on this wise did they reason ; the sanc- 
tuary of the first covenant was the tabernacle 
erected by Moses, after the pattern of the true 
or heavenly tabernacle. The sanctuary of 
the new covenant is the true tabernacle itself, 



242 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

the temple of God in heaven ; Ex. 25. Heb. 
8 : 9. Rev. 11 : 19. The services in the 
earthly sanctuary were the example and sha 
clow of those in the heavenly. The round ot 
service was concluded each year by the clean- 
sing of the sanctuary ; Lev. 16. This was the 
removal of the sins of the people of God 
from the sanctuary where they had been borne, 
that atonement might be made for them ; Lev. 
4. and their being placed upon the scape goat 
who received them when the high priest closed 
his work each year. They learned from Paul's 
commentary upon this very thing that the 
heavenly sanctuary is to be cleansed for the 
same reason that the earthly one was. Heb. 
9 : 23. That is, that there is a space of time 
in the conclusion of the ministration of Christ 
in the true tabernacle for the blotting out of 
the sins of the people of God from the earliest 
generation to the last; and with the accom- 
plishment of this work human probation clo- 
ses forever. Acts, 3 : 19. Luke, 13 : 25. Rev. 
10 : 7, 22, 11. The conclusion was arrived 
at from this examination that the 2300 days 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 243 

were ended, and that they bring us not to the 
close of human probation but to the com- 
mencement of that great work in the sanctuary 
which shall bring the work of mercy to a final 
termination. 

So the advent movement led directly to the 
heavenly sanctuary ; and with equal directness 
to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. 
For it was seen that the heavenly tabernacle 
with its sacred vessels was the great original 
after which Moses copied in making the tab- 
ernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. 
Ex. 25. Heb. 9. It was further seen that 
the heavenly sanctuary had the same grand 
central object as the earthly, viz: the ark of 
God's testament Eev. 11 : 19. Ex. 40 : 20, 
21. Deut. 10: 3, 5. The ark containing the ten 
commandments with the mercy seat for its top, 
was that over which the typical atonement was 
made ; and hence the real atonement must re- 
late to that law concerning which an atonement 
was shadowed forth. Lev. 16 : 15. And so the 
heavenly sanctuary contains the ark after 
which Moses patterned when he obeyed the 



244 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

mandate " see that thou make all things ac- 
cording to the pattern showed to thee in the 
mount," Heb. 8: 5; 9: 23. And in that 
ark is the original of that law which the great 
Law-giver copied with his own finger for the 
ark of the earthly sanctuary. Ex. 20, 24. 
Deut. 9 : 10. And this great fact clearly in- 
dicates that the ten commandments constitute 
the moral law to which the atonement relates ; 
that they are distinct from the law of types and 
shadows ; that they are unchangeable in their 
character, and of perpetual obligation ; that our 
Lord as high priest ministers before a real law ; 
that men in the gospel dispensation must obey 
the law of ten commandments; and so the 
Sabbath of the fourth commandment was 
found among the things which are as immuta- 
ble as the pillars of heaven. 

Thus the study of the heavenly sanctuary 
opened to their minds the Sabbath and the 
law of God. And so the ancient Sabbath of 
the Bible became with this people a part of 
the advent faith. The Seventh-day Adven- 
tists differ from the other Adventists in this, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 245 

that they accept the heavenly sanctuary 
with the ark and the law of God ; while the 
first-day Adventists reject the heavenly sanc- 
tuary, and with it the Sabbath and law of God 
and still maintain that the earth is the sanc- 
tuary to be cleansed by fire at the coming of 
Christ, and so they keep fixing new dates for 
the 2300 days in order to extend them to that 
event. 

The Seventh-day Adventists believe that 
the three great proclamations of Rev. 14. u The 
hour of his judgment is come ;" "Babylon is 
fallen, is fallen;" and "the commandments of 
God and the faith of Jesus," are addressed to 
the present generation, and that with their 
warning voice human probation closes up 
forever. They believe that God has designed 
one proclamation of prophetic time in fulfill- 
ment of the first of these three messages ; but 
that the second and third proclamations do not 
relate to time at all. They believe that the 
period of time at the end of the 2300 days 
occupied by our Lord in his closing work in 
the heavenly sanctuary is the time denomina- 



246 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

ted; "the patience of the saints," in which 
the third angel utters his solemn warning 
against the worship of the beast, and proclaims 
u The commandments of God and the faith 
of Jesas." The truths of the third angels 7 
message constitute therefore the final testimony 
to the world. And thus according to the view 
of this people the commandments of God are 
to be vindicated in opposition to the claims of 
the papal power in the closing period of hu- 
man probation. 

The Sabbath was introduced to the atten- 
tion of the advent people first at Washington, 
N. H. A faithful Seventh-day Baptist sister 
bj r the name of Preston' 36 ' from the State of 

*A word relative to this sister may be in place. Ra- 
chel D. Harris was born in Vernon, Vt. At the age of 
seventeen, she was converted and united with the Meth - 
odist Church. When she was twenty-eight years of ag*e 
she became a believer in the Bible Sabbath. The Metho- 
dist Minister did what he could to turn her from the Sab- 
bath, but finally told her she might keep it if she would 
not leave them. But she was faithful to her convictions 
of duty and united with the Seventh-day Baptist Church 
of Verona, Oneida Co. N. Y. Her first husband bore 
the name of Oaks. Her second that of Preston. She 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 247 

and her daughter Delight Oaks, were members of the 
Seventh -day Baptist Church of Verona, N. Y. at the time 
of their removal to Washington, N. H. Both these sisters 
were faithful to the grace bestowed upon thern, and 
both now sleep in Jesus. The daughter died several 
years since, the mother Feb. 1, 1868. But their works 
bear witness to their faithf illness in the service of God. 
These two humble sisters were instrumental in raising 
up the first Church of Sabbath-keeping Adventists, and 
from this Church the first rays of light shone forth 
upon those who have been instrumental in turning 
thousands to the Sabbath. These sisters not only bore 
testimony by word of mouth but by the distribution of 
tracts containing the reasons for the Sabbath. Will it 
ikh be said of them in the judgment, they have done 
what they could ? 



New York, a member of the Verona Church, 
having removed to this place, brought with 
her the Sabbath of the Lord. Here she be- 
came interested in the doctrine of the glorious 
advent of the Savior. Being instructed in 
^his subject by the advent people, she in turn 
nstructed them in the commandments of God, 
and as early as 1844 the whole Church in that 
place consisting of thirty or fourty persons 
became observers of the Sabbath of the Lord. 
The oldest body of Sabbath-keepers among the 



248 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

Seventh-day Adventists is therefore at Wash, 
ington, N. H. Its present number is small, 
for it has been thinned by death, and much 
more by emigration ; but there still remains a 
small company to bear witness to this ancient 
truth of the Bible. 

From this place several advent ministers 
received the Sabbath truth during the year 
1844. One of these was Elder T. M. Preble, 
who has the honor of first setting the Sabbath 
before the Adventists through the medium of 
the press. This was in the spring of 1845. 
Within a few months time several hundred 
persons began to observe the Sabbath as tie 
result of the light thus shed on their pathway. 
Elder J. B. Cook, a man of decided talent xs 
a preacher and a writer, was one of these early 
converts to the Sabbath. Elders Preble anl 
Cook were at this time in the full vigor of ther 
mental powers, and were possessed of talent 
and a reputation for piety which gave then 
great influence among the Adventists in behali 
of the Sabbath. These men seem to have 
been designed in the providence of God to 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 24& 

lead in the Sabbath reform among Adven- 
tists ; But both of them while preaching and 
writing in its behalf, committed the fatal error 
of making it of no practical importance. 
They had the same fellowship for those who 
rejected the Sabbath that they had for those 
who observed it. Such a course of action 
produced its natural result. After two or 
three years of this kind of Sabbath observance 
each of these men apostatized from it, and 
thenceforward used what influence they pos- 
sessed in warring against the fourth command- 
ment The larger part of those who embraced 
the Sabbath from their labors were not suffi- 
ciently impressed with its importance to be- 
come settled and grounded in its weighty evi- 
dences. Almost all who thus received the 
Sabbath soon turned back from its observance. 
But enough had been done to excite very 
bitter opposition toward the Sabbath on the 
part of many Adventists, and to bring out the 
ingenious and plausible arguments by which 
men attempt to strike out of existence the 
law of God. Such was the result of their 



250 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

course, and 'such the condition of things at 
the time of their defection. But the result 
of their plan of action taught the advent Sab- 
bath-keepers a lesson of value which they 
have not forgotten. They learned that the 
fourth commandment must be treated as a 
part of the moral law, if men are ever to be 
led to its sacred observance. 

Elder Preble s first article in behalf of the 
Sabbath, March, 1845, was the means of call- 
ing the attention of Elder Joseph Bates to 
this important truth. He soon became con- 
vinced of its obligation and at once began to 
observe it. He had acted quite a prominent 
part in the advent movement of 1848-4, and 
now with self-sacrificing zeal he took hold of 
the despised Sabbath truth to set it before his 
fellow men. He did not do it in the half-way 
manner of Elders Preble and Cook, but as a 
man thoroughly in earnest, and fully alive to 
the importance of his subject. The heavenly 
sanctuary began about this time to interest 
many adventists, and especially Elder Bates. 
He was one of the first to see that the central 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 251 

object of the heavenly sanctuary is the ark 
with the law of God. He also called atten- 
tion to the proclamation of the third angel 
relative to God's commandments. He girded 
on the armor to lay it down only when his 
work should be accomplished. He has been 
instrumental in leading many to the com- 
mandments of God and to the faith of Jesus, 
and few who have received the Sabbath from 
his teaching have apostatized from it. 

It was but a few months after Elder Bates, 
that Elder James White also embraced the 
Sabbath. He had been an efficient advent 
minister, and he now entered heartily into the 
work of Sabbath reform. Uniting with Elder 
Bates in the proclamation of the doctrine of the 
advent and the Sabbath as connected together 
in the sanctuary and the message of the third 
angel, he has with the blessing of heaven ac- 
complished great results in behalf of the Sab- 
bath. The publishing interests of the Seventh- 
day Adventists originated through his instru- 
mentality. He was for years the one responsi- 
ble for the financial success of this department. 



252 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

For several years he acted as editor of the 
organ of this people, the Advent Review, 
and for the earlier years of its existence was 
both editor and publisher. With all these 
cares and responsibilities he also acted as a 
minister of the gospel, preaching more or less 
in nearly all the northern states. The organi- 
zation of the publishing department enables 
him to lay off responsibilities pertaining 
thereto, and he now labors with great success 
as an evangelist in the wide harvest field. 

In the face of strong opposition, the people 
known as Seventh-day Adventists have arisen 
to bear their testimony for the Sabbath. They 
have had perils from open foes and from false 
brethren ; but they have thus far surmount- 
ed the difficulties of the way and gathered 
strength for the conflict before them. Honor- 
able mention might be made of many who 
have labored in the ministry and in the various 
departments of this work, but space will not 
admit of this. The time will come when 
every servant of Christ shall receive the just 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 253 

reward of his labors and then shall every man 
have praise of God.* 

The financial wants of the cause are sustained by a 
method of collecting money known as Systematic Be- 
nevolence. By this system it is designed that each 
friend of the cause shall pay a certain sum weekly, 
proportioned to the property which he possesses. In 
this manner the burden is borne by all, so that it rests 
heavily upon none ; and the means needed for the work 
flow with a steady stream into the treasury of the sev- 
eral churches and finally into that of the State confer- 
ences. A settlement is instituted each year, in which 
the labors, receipts and expenditures of each minister 
are carefully examined into. Thus none are allowed 
to waste means and none who are recognized as called 
of God to the ministry are allowed to suffer. 

The Churches sustain their meetings for the most 
part without the aid of preaching. They raise means 
to sustain the servants of Christ, but with noble gener- 
osity bid them mainly devote their time and strength 
to save those who have not the light of these important 
truths shining upon their pathway. So they go out 
everywhere preaching the Word of the Lord as His 
providence guides their feet. 

*There are about forty ministers who devote their en- 
tire strength to the w^ork of the Gospel. There is also 
a considerable number who preach a portion of the time 
and devote the remainder to secular labor. 



254 SABBATH AND SUNDAY- 

The Seventh-day Avdentists have eight state 
conferences whicli assemble annually in their 
respective states. These are Maine, Vermont, 
New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan 
and Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, Iowa and 
Minnesota. These conferences are designed 
to meet the local wants of the cause. There 
is also a general conference which asembles 
annually, composed of delegates from the 
state conferences. This conference takes the 
general over-sight of the work in all the state 
conferences, supplying the more destitute with 
laborers as far as possible, and uniting the 
whole strength of the body for the accomplish- 
ment of the work. It also takes the charge 
of missionary ]abor in those states which have 
no organized conferences. 

"The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association 
was incorporated in Battle Creek, Mich., May 3, 1861. 
Its object is to issue " periodicals, books, tracts, docu- 
ments, and other publications, calculated to impart in- 
struction on Bible truth, especially the fulfillment of 
prophecy, the commandments of God, and the teach- 
ings of Jesus Christ." Its capital stock is raised by 
shares at $10 each ; and every shareholder is entitled to 
one vote in all the deliberations of the association, for 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 255 

every share that he or she may hold. The association 
has now a large and well-furnished office of publication . 
established in Battle Creek, Mich., and employs two 
steam power presses in carrying on its business. A 
meeting of the stockholders is held each year, at which 
a board of trustees is elected to manage its business, and 
editors chosen to conduct its periodicals, till the ensuing- 
meeting. All persons employed in the publishing de- 
partment, are engaged at stipulated wages, and all 
profits accruing from the business, are strictly applied 
by the association to the carrying out of the object of 
its formation, and to its charitable uses and purposes. 
All lovers of truth who " keep the commandments of 
God and the faith of Jesus,"' are still invited to take 
shares in the association, and have a voice in all its de- 
liberations." 

THE ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD 

" Is a large sixteen-page religious family paper, issued 
weekly by the S. D. A. Pub. Association, and devoted to an 
earnest investigation of all Bible questions. It is designed 
to be an exponent of momentous and solemn truths per- 
taining to the present time, some of which are set forth 
by no other periodical in the land. The fulfillment of 
prophecy, the second personal advent of the Saviour 
as an event now near at hand, immortality through 
Christ alone, a change of heart through the operation 
of the Holy Spirit, the observance of the Sabbath of 
the fourth commandment, the divinity and mediatorial 
work of Christ, and the development of a holy charac- 
ter by obedience to the perfect and holy law of Uod, as 
embodied in the decalogue, are among its special themes. 



256 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

And while it will endeavor to present impartially both 
sides of all important questions, it has a definite. theory 
to teach, and hence will not devote its space to an in- 
discriminate and aimless mass of conflicting sentiments 
and views. 

The Review has a circulation of about 4,000 copies." 

The association also publishes a monthly 
paper called the Youth's Instructor, which has 
a circulation of about 2,200 copies. It is de- 
signed to be to youth and children what the 
Jievieiv is to those that are older. * 

Such is the scattered condition of this peo- 
ple, (for they are found in all the northern states 
and in several of the southern,) that less than 
half their number is embraced in church and 
conference organizations. They are to be found 
in single families scattered all the way from 
Maine to California and Oregon. The Review 
and Instructor constitue in a great number of 
cases the only preachers of their faith. The 

*The association has an extensive list of publications, 
from the penny tract to the bound volume, setting forth 
the views of the Seventh-day Adventists upon the Sab- 
bath and the law of God, the advent of Christ and the 
Judgment. They have circulated not less than 40,000,- 
000 pages of these works. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 257 

number of Seventh-day Adventists by careful 
estimation is fixed at not less than 12,000. The 
doctrines cherished by this people are quite 
fully indicated in what has been said respect- 
ing the Review. This people are very strict 
with regard to the ordinance of baptism, be- 
lieving not only that it requires men to be 
buried in the watery grave, but that even this 
is not valid baptism if administered to those 
who are breaking one of the ten command- 
ments. They also believe that our Lord's di- 
rections in John xiii, should be observed' in 
connection with the sapper. 

They also believe that gifts of the Spirit set 
forth in 1 Cor. xii. Eph. iv. were designed to re- 
main in the Church till the end of time. They 
believe that these were lost to the Church in 
consequence of that same apostacy that chang- 
ed the Sabbath. They also believe that in the 
final restoration of the commandments by the 
work of the third angel, the gifts of the Spirit 
of God are restored with them. So the rem- 
nant of the Church, or last generation of its 
members are said to " keep the command- 



258 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

ments of Grod and have the testimony of Je- 
sus Christ." Rev. xii : 17. " The testimony of 
Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." Rev. xix: 10. 
The Spirit of prophecy therefore has a distinct 
place assigned it in the final work of Sabbath 
reform. Such are their views of this portion 
of Scripture ; and their history from the be- 
ginning has been marked by the controlling 
influence of this gift in their midst 

The above presents a candid statement of 
the origin history and peculiarities of the peo- 
ple known as the Seventh-Day Adventists. 
It cannot be better concluded than with the 
statement of the great object which they hope 
to accomplish. It is this : to make ready a 
people prepared for the advent of the Lord. 



CHAPTER IX. 



JP 



ONCLUSION 




HUS a survey of the whole field re- 
veals the truth that the first defec- 
tion from the Sabbath, in the Chris- 
tian Church, began with that " fall- 
ing away " which " revealed the man of Sin." 
Tt shows also that those dissenters who retain- 
ed the Grospel in purity through the centuries 
of darkness which succeeded the apostacy, 
were Sabbath-keepers, and that certain 
branches of the Church in the East, which 
have never been subjected to the civil control 
of the Papacy, have never ceased to observe 
the Sabbath. It shows that the cause of Sab- 
bath Reform has gained no permanent success 
since the reformation, except in connection 
with the Sabbath day. 

The same survey shows that Sunday is the 
child of apostacy ; that it came into the Church 



260 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

through heathen philosophy, was established 
by civil law as a heathen festival, and came 
into prominence only as the Church sunk 
away from the Sabbath and purity into No- 
Sabbathism and darkness. It shows that the 
" Puritan Sunday *' is dying from inherent 
weakness, as all comp± >mises must die, and is 
leaving the American Church to sink into No- 
Sabbathism and infidelity. Thus the two 
prominent false theories concerning the Sab-' 
bath have been tried and found wanting ; and 
we stand at an hour when God is opening the 
way for the final triumph of the truth. Good 
men everywhere are asking for light, and the 
means for spreading this light are rapidly in- 
creasing. True, the " great ones " in the Church 
are unwilling to accept the despised u Jewish 
Sabbath" even though they cannot gainsay its 
claims. Many of its foes are yet u pr6ud and 
scornful," determined to hold to the Sunday 
until God wrenches it from them, or it crum- 
bles in their hands. But the days of their 
scorning are numbered. Nevertheless the Sab- 
bath must meet darkness yet, must struggle 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 261 

in. Grethsemane, and may seem to die upon 
some coming Calvary. But Grod is with His 
Day, and its resurrection cannot be far beyond. 
Let the friends of truth wait in patience, only 
praying for the privilege of a place among 
those who bear the burdens, and shall enjoy 
the triumph of final victory. 



:fb 

There are two phases of the Sabbath ques- 
tion as shown in the history of Sunday since the 
Reformation, which teach an important lesson 
bearing upon the present state of the Sabbath 
Reform movements in America. 

1. The " Continental Reformers " in Europe 
accepted the No-Sabbath doctrines of the Pa- 
pal Church, and retained the Sunday only as 
a religious holiday, a sort of sanitary measure 
necessary to the well-being of society. The 
ripened fruit of such teachings is seen in the 
present Sabbathless and infidelic state of the 
European Church, especially in France and 
Germany. That doctrine is now the leading- 
one in America. It cannot fail to bear the 



M2 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

same fruit with which it has cursed Europe ; 
the same " apples of Sodom/' 

2. The English reformers were driven by the 
power of the truth as presented by the Sev- 
enth-day Baptists, to choose between the Sab- 
bath and the Papistic Sunday. Strangely 
blinded, they sought a compromise between 
the two, which, like all compromises, was both 
weak and wicked. Through this compromise 
came the ''Puritan Sabbath." It has been 
tested in America. The devotion which the 
Puritans brought to its observance left nothing 
wanting as far as religious support was con- 
cerned. But it has outrun the u Theology " of 
which it was a part in its decline, and the 
" Puritan Sabbath " is numbered with the 
things that were. It is now proposed by the 
leaders of the American Church to restore it 
and compel its observance by civil law. It is 
therefore befitting to introduce a few facts 
from history to show that civil law tried in 
vain to save the Sunday even in the palmy days 
of Puritanism. The first civil government in 
New England was an outgrowth of the Church, 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 268 

and performed the will of the Church, wil- 
lingly and completely. Witness the following 
facts, from the historj^ of a representative col- 
ony. In 1650 the General Court of the Ply- 
mouth Colony enacted as follows : 

" Further be it enacted that whosoever shall profane 
the Lord's day by doing any servile work, or any such 
like abuse, shall forfeit for every such default, ten shil- 
lings, or be whipped."* 

In 1658 another law was enacted as fol- 
lows : 

" Whereas complaint is made of great abuse in sun 
dry places in this government of profaning the Lord's 
day by travellers, both horse and foot, by bearing of 
burdens, carrying of packs, &c, upon the Lord's day, to 
the great offence of the godly well-affected amongst us. 
It is therefore enacted by the Court, and the authority 
thereof, that if any person or persons shall be found 
transgressing in any of the precincts of any township 
within this Government, he or they shall be forthwith 
apprehended by the constable of such a town, and fined 
twenty shillings to the Colony's use, or else set in the 
stocks four hours, except they can give a sufficient rea- 
son for their so doing ; and they that transgress in any 
of the above said particulars, shall only be apprehended 
on the Lord's day, and on the Second day following. 

^Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. XI, p. 57. 



2(M SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

shall either pay their fine, or sit in the stocks, as afore- 
said."* 

In 1670, the line of ten shillings, specified 
in the law of 1650, was changed to " forty shil- 
lings '."f After the union of Plymouth with the 
Massachusetts Bay colony, at the second ses- 
sion of the General Court, held at Boston in 
the year 1658, the following action was taken 
in view of the increasing disregard for Sun- 
day. 

" Whereas by too sad experience it is observed, the 
sun being set, both every Saturday and on the Lord's 
day, young" people and others take liberty to walk, and 
sport themselves in the streets or fields in the several 
towns in this jurisdiction, to the dishonor of God and the 
disturbance of others in their religious exercises, and 
too frequently repair to public houses of entertainment 
and there sit drinking, all which tends, not only to the 
hindering of due preparation for the Sabbath, but as 
much as in them lies renders the ordinance of God un- 
profitable, and threatens rooting out the power of god- 
liness, and procuring the wrath and judgments of God 
upon us and our posterity ; for the prevention whereof 
it is ordered by this Court, and the authority thereof, 
that if any person or persons henceforth, either on the 
Saturday night or on the Lord's Day night after the sun 

*Plym. Col. Records, vol. XI, p. 100. 
f See. Records, vol. XI, p. 176. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 265 

is set, shall be found sporting in the streets or fields of 
any town in this jurisdiction, drinking or being in any 
houses of entertainment, (unless strangers or sojourners, 
as in their lodgings), and cannot give a satisfactory rea- 
son to such magistrate or commissioner in the several 
towns as shall have cognizance thereof, every such per- 
sons found, complained of and proved transgressing, shall 
pay five shillings for every such transgression, or suf- 
fer corporal punishment, as authority aforesaid shall 
determine."* 

At a General Court called by order of the 
Council on the 21st of July, 1665, and held 
at Boston the first of August, the following 
was enacted : 

" This Court being sensible that through the wicked 
practices of many persons who do profane God's holy 
Sabbaths, and contemn the public worship of his house y 
the name of God is greatly dishonored, and the profes- 
sion of his people here greatly scandalized, as tending- 
to all profaneness and irreligion, as also that by reason 
of the late order of October 20th, 1063, remitting the 
fines imposed on such to the use of the several towns, 
the laws made for reclaiming such enormities are be- 
come ineffectual, do therefore order and enact, that 
henceforth all fines imposed according to law for profa- 
nation of the Sabbath, contempt or neglect of God's 
public worship, reproaching the laws and authority here 
established, according to his Majestie's charter, shall be 

*Mass. Colony Records, vol. 4, p. 347. 



%W SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

to the use of the several counties as formerly, anything 
in the above said law to the contrary, notwithstanding ; 
and in case any person or persons so sentenced do 
neglect or refuse to pay such fine or mulct as shall be 
legally imposed on them, or give security in Court, to 
the Treasurer for payment thereof, every such person 
or persons, so refusing or neglecting to submit to the 
Court's sentence, shall for such his contempt be corpo- 
rally punished according as the Court that hath cogni- 
zance of the case shall determine, and where any are 
corporally punished, their fines shall be remitted."* 

These are specimen enactments such as were 
common in all the New England Colonies and 
the essence of which was embodied in the 
statutes of the States when the colonial gov- 
ernments passed away. These laws were not 
■" dead letters," but were rigidly enforced, the 
offender paying the penalty of disobedience 
at the office of the collector of fines, at the 
stocks and the whipping post. But no 
amount of civil legislation could save the u Pu- 
ritan Sabbath " from the inwrought weakness 
of a false theory, which sought to compromise 
truth with error, and, despite the logic of New 
England theology, the devotion of New Eng- 

*Mass. Col. Records, vol. 4, Part 2, p. 276. 



SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 907 

land religionists, and the strictness of civil law, 
the Puritan Sunday is dead. The wonder is that 
men can hope for any future reform through 
means which have so often and so signally 
failed. The whole question is above and be- 
yond the realm of civil law. Sabbath-keep- 
ing is a religious duty, and no man can truly 
perform it who acts from any other motive than 
love to God. By their present position the 
"" Orthodox v religious leaders are the enemies 
of true Sabbath Reform. Thev are constantly 
deceiving the people by false theories con- 
cerning the Sunday. If the people discover 
the truth, as many do, these leaders seek to 
quiet them by stigmatizing the k * Jewish Satur- 
day," and sanctimoniously appealing to them 
to support the " Anglo-American Sabbath, our 
fathers gift, and the palladium of our prosper- 
ity/ 'Thus the blind lead the blind, rushing 
on in the way of error. In the name of the 
Lord of the Sabbath we arraign these men and 
charge them with great ignorance or great dis- 
honesty. If ignorant they need only to open 
their eves to see the light If they see the 



268 SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

truth and turn from it they are sinners, seek- 
ing their own ends in the name of religion. 
Brethren, why tight thus against God ? Num- 
bers, wealth, and high position will not avail 
you. Justice will not withold her sword, 
though you may do much good, while you 
pervert the truth and uphold error. Either ac- 
cept the Sunday in its true character, as a semi- 
pagan festival, or else accept (rod's Sabbath, 
even though men deride. Victory belongeth 
to God, and hence the truth can afford to 
wait. But when bleeding Truth lifts her 
prayer to the Father for deliverance, woe to 
those who frame iniquity by law, " and teach 
for doctrines of Grod the commandments of 
men." The cause of Sabbath Reform is fast 
ripening, and God will find means to reap the 
harvest even though he sweep the Church 
with fierce whirlwinds to purge away its cher- 
ished errors. May the Lord of the Sabbath 
lead us all in the way- of truth. — Amen. 

THE END. 

31J-77-6 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 606S 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 654 752 7 



^F 



■E 



H 



